It's been emotional.
My first night was spent in a dizzy haze of sweat. There is no aircon or running water for part of the day. Picture of my bathroom below...If I'm really honest I completely freaked out when I first got here but thankfully Weeze is only in HK and picked up on wassap. It all felt very far away from London.
What's weird is that although I'm only on day 2 I now feel so much more at ease here. The shower isn't nearly as daunting (the cold water buckets are a welcome relief to the heat), I managed to sleep with a cover and my PJs last night and I've eaten Khmer lunch and dinner with the girls without any repercussions (it's delicious food).
Om Malis, the house mum, brought me mini bananas and the girls are so friendly and tonnes of fun. I'm desperately trying to remember everyone's names, there are 46 girls in TT dorm.
They all work really hard. I was having a conversation about going to the cinema this Saturday (which proved difficult on two grounds, the first because they didn't understand the word for cinema, not ever having been to one before, and secondly because they have classes well into the evening). I was tutoring a couple of girls at 10pm last night, one just wanted to talk in English and the other wanted me to review a grammar lesson plan she had prepared.
I had a lovely lunch with Juliet in BT dorm (who also arrived on Wednesday). We had arranged on email to meet on the corner of Street 111 and Street 182 at Orosay Market, all very organised we thought. When I got there I realised how ridiculous a plan it was. The place was packed with motos, tuk tuks, shops, street vendors and everyone's goods all over the pavement busy will shoppers. I saw a blonde girl on the opposite side of the road and after a nervous glance we almost fell into each others arms. Had my first experience of monsoon last night. The sky goes really dark, the rain chucks it down and there's lots of crashing, thunder and lighting. It clears up as quickly as it arrives and only lasted 20 minutes.
I'm off to prepare my first Cambodia Daily Discussion Group, we'll be discussing Japan's recent support of Burma.
