Great Expectations!
on Mary In Cambodia (Cambodia), 03/Jul/2010 08:16, 34 days ago
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'Great Expectations?’The first school year of my stay in Cambodia is grinding slowly to a close. I realise I’ve been here almost 9 months. Recently someone asked me if it has lived up to my expectations? This got me thinking. The truth is I don’t know what I expected. I knew very little about Life in Asia, and even less about Cambodia. I read‘the Killing Fields’ many years ago, and dismissed it as fiction. I vaguely remember talk about war in Cambodia, but it is years since that country got any media coverage, so things couldn’t be too bad. I knew it was a poor country, otherwise VSO wouldn’t be sending out volunteers. The preparing to volunteer training was general, without detail on individual countries. I read all I could, and didn’t worry. After all if it was too bad I could buy a ticket and go home. On arriving in Phnom Penh airport, nothing could have prepared me for what was to follow.‘TRAFFIC’. The journey to the Programme Office was the most terrifying half hour of my life. I couldn’t be sure if one was supposed to drive on the right or left, and the driver didn’t seem to care, he just wove his way through a moving maze. I felt sheer terror. A cyclo tour of Phnom Penh a few days later did nothing to ease my fears. How was I supposed to drive a motorbike? They told me it would be easy,‘I was more likely to meet a cow than another vehicle’ they said. Crossing a road was a night-mare, it was the law of the jungle. I faced many other difficulties. I really missed my family and my comfortable home. The food was hard to get used to, lack of hygiene was frightening and four legged’friends’ along with creepy crawlies of all shapes and sizes insisted on taking up residence in the bedroom. The heat was unbearable and it was a real struggle to learn a new language. Nine months on, I’m used to the surroundings, shabby restaurants, a bit of litter under the table, that ice we were warned about, no problem. As for the creepy crawlies, they’re not really so scary, sure, Cambodians eat most of them. However it’s wise to check the loo before using it, once a gecko looked up at me as I was about to sit down, and another time a huge spider scuttled out past me. Ants are probably the biggest nuisance, they’re everywhere, nothing gets rid of them, drop a bit of jam on the table and within minutes an army of them appear out of no-place. Gen paid the price of not checking her underwear for them, before putting them on, a timely warning to all of us! But as my colleague Oly said, the mosquito is the real villain, it makes sense to be wary of them, they bite without pity, attacking round the clock----the night ones spreading Malaria and the day ones threatening Dengue. Who needs a teddy-bear!Nine months here, the chaos on the road goes on, though Sisophon isn’t as bad as Phnom Penh. From time to time I still feel a little panic, near misses happen regularly, but the ingenuity of Cambodian people to use and adapt vehicles never ceases to amaze me. I didn't plucked up the courage to drive the motorbike. I wish I had been brave enough, but I know it would have been foolish. I have a V.A. who is a good, careful driver. With Joe driving I’m less likely to kill or be killed, I happily sit behind admiring the country side. My expectations! Living in Cambodia has certainly taken me out of my comfort zone, I’ve had experiences and opportunities your average grandmother only sees on T.V. I’ve met some wonderful people, the support and friendship of my VSO colleagues has been heart-warming. It’s been great. I’m looking forward now to going home to see my family and friends, I have really missed them, but I’ll be back God willing.
