By mid-May, my mind is definitely beginning to wander towards returning home and to the comforts of familiar settings and close friends. It could be that the knowledge that I’ll be returning is simply allowing me to get excited about going home, or maybe it’s more than just that. Either way, though, I’m feeling more and more confident in my decision to be in New York next year as the end of this year comes closer.
Nonetheless, with the same thoughts of excitement about returning home come thoughts of the realities of being back after a year in such a different environment. I have the first few days set: bagels, family, friends, driving, and fluent English conversations. I can already picture how wonderfully weird it’ll be for everything to work, to be able to eavesdrop on others’ conversations, and to have more than just a few people around to hang out with. But at the same time, it’ll be weird going back to the consistency and, if not quite predictable, at least less adventurous and more expected life of being home.
The last two days have highlighted that a day here can be as filled with positive excitement as annoying frustration, but irrelevant of which way the balance tips, no day really comes to a close leaving me feeling neutral.
Yesterday was pretty much the no good, very bad day of this month, maybe even of the past two days. It started out positively enough. With intensions to travel with Rabia over the King’s birthday, I spent my first day of vacation in Phnom Penh waiting for Rabia to return from an extended weekend trip before we were supposed to head to the provinces. Although I usually like to get out of the city as soon as possible on days off to maximize travel, it was pretty refreshing to have no work but to be able to simply take care of things here in Phnom Penh at a more relaxed pace, especially since I feel a self-inflicted pressure to take advantage of traveling whenever it’s even remotely possible and therefore rarely spend time to simply relax here on a day off.
After going out for a late breakfast, I was walking up Street 19 and about to make a right towards my apartment, when one of the moto drivers on the corner yelled out the typical “sir, SIR, moto, okay.” But then, probably as a result of some miracle, he finally recognized me, after having lived here for nearly a year. He looked at me with a sense of actual acknowledgement, stopped shouting, pointed to my apartment, and gave me a thumbs-up and a smile. As minor as it was, it was a great feeling to finally have one of the drivers on the corner actually recognize me and treat me like a neighbor.
I continued, walking into my tunnel just as an old woman was setting up fresh mangostines in her basket to sell. How many other apartments will I have where I can come home to find the fruit of the season conveniently laid out right in front of where I live? I proceeded to buy one kilo of fruit since I forgot how to say half in Khmer, but within the next hour, I was unconcerned that any would go to waste. They were delicious.
But then, just in time to counteract all of the positive of the earlier part of my day, Rabia called to say that her bus was stuck not even an hour outside of where she had departed. Worst of all, it wasn’t even one of the country’s bad roads. The driver had simply been lazy, stupid, or careless and simply drove off the completely paved strip of road into a ditch in the dirt bordering the highway. (I found out later from Rabia that he had decided to start texting right before the bus took a literal turn for the worst). Rabia’s phone was about to run out of credit - how Cambodian - so she asked me to see if I could find a way to get a taxi from Stung Treng to pick them up and at least bring them to the nearest sign of civilization.
After a search, I found someone who knew someone with a car in Stung Treng who could pick them up, but negotiating for someone else with someone else who is negotiating for someone else is a time-consuming and often frustrating process. I’ve gotten to the point where I avoid even going to places that require bargaining simply because I’m so tired of it by now, so you can imagine how fun it was to be doing it for someone else. All of this bargaining, of course, happened after about 20 minutes of explanation to convey what I even needed.
The person on the other end’s lack of English comprehension was certainly not his fault. After all, I wasn’t speaking Khmer to him. But nonetheless, instinctually, it was hard to refrain from yelling in frustration at him to just understand already. Stop asking me when the bus will be arriving in Stung Treng. The whole point is that they need your help to get to Stung Treng because the bus is stuck. Nonetheless, he continually kept asking to confirm what time their bus would arrive in Stung Treng, making me realize that, if he didn’t understand the main idea of the request I was making, which was to pick them up because the bus wasn’t moving anywhere, I doubted that he was understanding any of the details I was giving him. Every time I tried to explain that we couldn’t arrive without his friend’s taxi because the bus was broken, he would say, “yes, what time will the bus get here?” I finally resorted to saying something approximating, “Bus no work - it stop. Cannot go. Need car. We are on the road. Not in Stung Treng. Not in Ratanikiri.”
I gave up on even trying to explain that I was not even with them and that I was calling for them. The amount of frustration that will be eliminated by being able to communicate with someone in English who speaks English as their native language when I return will be one of the most pleasurable feelings. Of course, it’ll also eliminate some of what can be the exciting challenge of conveying messages when no one really understands what the other person’s saying.
Shortly thereafter, Rabia texted to say that she didn’t need the ride after all but that some other people that she met on the bus would take the taxi. Hours later, I was stuck with the taxi driver calling me every minute to ask where “I” was, wanting more specific directions for exactly where he needed to pick everyone up. By now, I had spent a couple hours trying to work all this out, and at the end of the day, I wasn’t even there. And Rabia wasn’t even there anymore either. I don’t even know what the road between Stung Treng and Ratanikiri looks like.
I tried to call Rabia, but I can’t remember what it’s like to be in a country where you can expect your calls to go through every time. Most of the time, it simply wouldn’t connect, but one of the times, I actually had the experience of calling and, without even ringing, getting patched directly into some Khmer pop song that was playing. I removed the phone from my ear for a second just to make sure I wasn’t imagining it. I still don’t know how signals can get so crossed. Other times, I would get a message saying that I was in fact out of credit, even though I knew it wouldn’t and that I could easily make a call right after I hung up.
I finally just gave up after numerous useless calls. I decided to go to pay my internet bill and then go pick up some souvenirs at Russian Market that I want to get before I head home. Of course, right as Buntha pulled up to get me, it started raining. We got splashed by passing motorbikes going through puddles for a good portion of the ride, and when I got to the Cellcard office, I learned that they had eliminated the internet plan that I had been on and were now charging me for every time I used Kb-intense internet usage, such as the Skype calls that finally started working about a month ago and had me so excited. Why should I expect them to inform me about this change? Then again, I should probably let this one slide because I can see some company in the US doing this to its customers as well, but at least there, the internet probably works consistently. And I know that it’s completely culturally appropriate to yell at someone about it. Here, even if someone screws up royally, you always have to swallow your frustration just in case it was a language or cultural miscommunication.
I had a bad feeling as we headed from there to the market, and it was confirmed when we arrived. Why in the world would shops want to stay open past 4:30 PM, especially when I had gotten soaked on my way there?
I headed to the gym for a much-needed release of tension, at which point the left speaker of my headphones decided to stop working as I was about a minute into a run. But now that I was starting to go delirious in frustration, I looked around in amusement. To completely stereotype and generalize, many of the people from a certain continent who go to the gym do a hilarious workout, which consists of doing one of a few things, all of which were on display yesterday. I felt like I was in crazy town, but the incomprehensibility of it made me laugh in a in a way that finally allowed me to start easing up. Option one: run on the treadmill in basically everything but your high heels. Really, it’s walking, not running, and at a pace so slow that I think it would be a better workout just pacing around your house. Honestly, if you can talk on your cell phone and wear a dress shirt or necklaces while working out, you’re not really doing anything. Option two, run like crazy on the treadmill…but do this awkward thing where all of your weight is supported by your arms on the bar in front so that your body looks weirdly disconnected, with the lower half flailing around and the upper half virtually still. Option three: start doing a legitimate workout and make me think that you’re actually going to exercise, but set the timer for about two minutes and get off with a look of smug satisfaction. Next up, move to the bike for two minutes and then lift one weight for about three curls. Work out complete.
Oh yeah, and by no fault of her own obviously, Rabia got a fever last night so knew she wouldn’t be able to travel today either.
Sometimes when I’m here, it’s hard not to feel so far from home and so ready to go back. Even if the same things could happen at home, being so far away and in a very different place can make them that much more distressing.
But for all of the frustration that was yesterday, today was equally satisfying. Life here is never just pleasantly boring. Realizing that we wouldn’t be able to head out until at least tomorrow, I switched plans and decided to head to Vietnam on my own. I hadn’t realized how unenthusiastic I had been about any of the places in Cambodia we were planning on visiting until I finally decided to just go to Saigon, a place I have really wanted to visit. Instead of “experiencing” a place, there would actually be sights to see and museums to visit. Plus, by now, Cambodia’s become home, so there’s an excitement of simply going to another country. I’ve recently come to realize that this summer really is a good time for me to head home because travel plans to random places don’t thrill me in quite the same way that they used to. I need to recharge.
I went to the Vietnamese embassy first thing this morning, and my visa was done within ten minutes. I easily booked the bus for Ho Chi Minh, and I even found things at the market today that I’ve been looking for for a long time. I still get excited realizing that I can decide the day before that I’m going to Vietnam for the weekend and have it all arranged within a couple of hours.
Plus, not to brag, but I think my mosquito killing accuracy tonight has been about 80%, and that’s with the poor lighting of our apartment. I’m serious when I say that little gives me more satisfaction than seeing a flattened mosquito between my palms, knowing that I’m doing my part to eliminate dengue fever and malaria one bug at a time.
It may lack the frustrations, but I can’t really imagine that two days at home right now would match the constant ups and downs that result from being in a place like Cambodia.