Life in the Tropics

Things they don't tell you about living in the tropics

(or if they do tell you, you don't believe them)

Gulf of Thailand in Sihanoukville

• You will sweat, 95% of the time. Not nice, lady like perspiration, oh no, full on pouring sweat. Walking down the stairs? Sweat! Riding your bike to the market? Sweat! Sitting in the office? Sweat! And because the air is so humid it won't evaporate off your skin like it's supposed to, so it won't make you any cooler.
• The sweating will make you want to shower constantly. You will understand why the words for "beautiful" and "clean" are the same in several languages.
• The 5% of the time when you're not sweating? You will be freezing cold. Not because it's actually cold, oh no, it's only around 75F, if it's even that cold, but because your body will be so confused as to why you are not hot enough to sweat anymore.
• Ants are everywhere. Mini ants, red ants, normal ants- you name 'em, they're around. Think it's safe to leave an empty mug on the table while you finish reading? By the time you pick up the mug again there will be ants.
• It will be both humid and dusty. These things seem like they don't go together, but it is true. You will constantly be sweeping the dust off your floor or coughing from the dust when riding on a moto.
• You will probably want to wear a surgical mask while riding a moto, in order to deal with the

  

  Rain over the river in Phnom Penh

  previously mentioned dust. They do wonders, even if they make it difficult to breath.
• You'll see more lizards than you've ever seen before. They will be around, all the time. They'll come into your house, and climb on walls, and just kind of chill. Sometimes they will eat stray grains of rice that are laying around.
• The aforementioned lizards also make noises, loud ones if they're big enough. The first time I heard one I thought it was a bird, then some one showed me the lizard hanging out on the back of the cabinet and I was shocked.
• When it rains it pours. Light drizzle is not a thing. You will need to carry a raincoat with you at all times during rainy season, just in case.
• When it rains it floods the streets. So, even though you are wearing a raincoat you will still be

  

  Pool in Phnom Penh

  soaked to the bone. Also, you will have to drive through the flooding, which may or may not flood the engine on your moto.
• Most building have tin roofs, this means that when it's hot it will be especially hot inside. And when it rains, it will be loud enough to make you want to put a pillow over your head to muffle the noise.
• While there is an abundance of tropical fruits (papya, mango, banana, pineapple, dragon fruit, durren, mango stem, milk fruit...) sometime you will miss the fruits and berries you grew up with. Buying them will cost you an arm and a leg though.
• While you think tropics equal all around pool season, it will either be so hot that any time spent not swimming will need to be spent in the shade to avoid instant sunburn and sweat, or it will be just chilly enough that you can't fathom going into the water.

Attempting Routines

Khmer New Year dinner with MCC Staff

 In the States, we really like schedules. We plan things well in advance- parties, meetings, other events. Last minute changes tend to make us stressed- or at least that's how I feel. This is a cultural difference that I've really had to confront here in Cambodia because things are much more likely to be planned last minute here- which makes trying to balance working at three different organizations and attending events for a forth kind of difficult. Thankfully, I've settled into a (very) general routine:

Motoing with one of the SALTers

Monday: I work at the Peace Institute of Cambodia (PIC). I leave my house around 7AM because with traffic it's about an hour of driving each way. Most day I'm there I have a meeting with the director to go over plans and the things that need to be done. I've been working on collecting contact information for potential international academic partners, and I'll start working on the website next week. I get home around 6PM and after a quick dinner, I meet up with some friends at one of the local movie theaters to watch one of my favorite TV shows.

Dinner with some WPM staff

Tuesday and Wednesday: I work at Women PeaceMakers (WPM). I write and edit reports and grant applications for funding organizations, and basically end up writing or editing anything that's needed in English. At least once a week I meet up with one or two of the SALTers for lunch since many of them work in offices near WPM. These are also the days that I run to MCC if I have anything I need to do there, because the WPM office is close to the MCC office.

RISC Staff

Thursday and Friday: I head on over to the Returnee Integration Support Center (RISC), and hang out and work with those guys. I'm currently working on updating their website and assisting with analyzing a survey they are conducting with the returnees to see how they are doing as an organization. I also get to go along on site visits with the other staff. Almost every month, I go visit some returnee's who are in prison near Phnom Penh. Prisons here provide very little, so RISC brings them toiletries and some money to buy food and water every month, along with just checking up on them and being smiling outside faces.

This schedule often gets interrupted though- by holidays (which all of the offices might take or only a few will), MCC events, and special events as well. I'm starting to relax more, and just go with the flow- even when I have mornings like today that just feel like disasters. I drove all the way out to PIC just to realize that it's a holiday for that office. I try to keep an open mind and to just be open to the new adventures that each day holds.

Moto Adventures

This holiday season has been full of unexpected, moto adventures. I knew coming to Cambodia that I'd have to learn to drive a motorbike (it's more of a motorscooter than a motorcycle). My first driving lesson was during my first week, when I went with the YALT group to Prey Vang. It wasn't a very long lesson, because it started raining during my 2nd lap of the street. I didn't get on a moto, solo, again until the end of November. During that lesson I did a couple laps around the block. I managed to fall 3 times in less than half an hour. But, my wonderful teacher Tony didn't see me, and some really nice motodop drivers helped me pick the moto back up- it was clear to them that I had no idea what I was doing.

After that I was on my own. I knew I needed to learn to drive, but I really didn't want to. I was so tense and nervous during my second lesson that my upper back and shoulders were sore the next day. But, I did it, I made myself drive on the back roads around the office. A few weeks later I made myself drive over to the grocery store. But, I still hated having to get on the moto. 

Then on the day of the MCC Christmas party I found myself in a sticky situation. All of the YALTers were in town so all of the MCC bikes were in use. Without a bike my choices of transportation to the party, at the Reps' House, were to walk, motodop, or drive myself. I called my parents before the party so I didn't have time to walk there, and I never learned the landmark to use to tell a motodop how to get to the Reps' House. So, after an internal pep talk, I forced myself to drive the moto. It was a quiet Saturday morning, so there wasn't much traffic on the main roads. I was able to easily drive myself to the house, even through the round about. At the end of my party I gave myself another pep talk and drove on home again.

The only time after that I needed to give myself a pep talk to drive was on Christmas Day when I met up with some of the other Service Workers for Christmas Dinner. 

Next thing I knew, I was driving everywhere. I drove to WPM, and then after work drove out to the River Side to meet up with a visit from Swarthmore. I didn't exactly know where I was going, so I almost ended up driving over a bridge and out of the city. Thankfully, there was a place to make a u-turn before actually getting on the bridge. According to Google Maps the drive should take about 15 minute, but between traffic and my unexpected detour, it took me about 40 minutes. Thankfully the people I was meeting were extremely understanding.

Since then I have made moto my primary form of transportation, including driving the 30+ minutes to RISC multiple times now. And I've even driven with someone else on it with me (which I will admit was pretty stressful and difficult at first, but got better as the day went on). I'm going to try to keep riding my bike for shorter trips, but I've learned that I really enjoy motoing places. Maybe I'll get a motorcycle when I'm back in the States...