Poipet

Chump reap suor!
Hello to everyone back home and abroad, and thanks for coming to my blog. I'm new to this but I figure it can't be that hard, right?
I'm writing this in my new home in Poipet. My head is propped up on two pillows and my walls and ceiling are a little cracked and dirty, but they'll do. I'm on lunch break right now but have to head back to CHO at 1:30. For now, I will try to tell some stories from the past few days.

I flew out late Monday night, after driving through a double rainbow all the way from my family's house to the airport. Both of my flights went very smoothly; I was spoiled by Emirates' delicious food and wide film selection. (David, if you are reading this, I finally watched the Book of Eli.) My layover in Dubai made me want to stay there and check it out, but eastward I continued. Once I arrived in Bangkok, I was in a bit of a daze, but my excitement won out. On my way through the line to get my Thai visa, the guy processing me kept trying to send me to the back of the line because I did not have a hotel in Thailand listened. I told him four times I was not staying in Thailand that night, but he kept repeating that I needed to tell him what hotel I was staying at. I did not want to go to the back of the line and wait forever so I insisted that I was staying in Poipet, so he told me to talk to the woman posted next to him, and he left. I guess I was too much for him! Then, this lady kept looking at me suspiciously because my passport photo apparently did not match my current appearance. Does my short hair make me look that different?! She had to call someone over to verify that it was me.
Once I left the airport, it took me awhile to travel around via public transit. (I felt like such a tourist, doing all the things I learned not to... I knew no Thai phrases and it took me several times to catch onto the bowing and pressing your palms together when addressing someone.) I did not know exactly how to get to the clinic to get my vaccines, so I had to figure out where to go... it took awhile, and I had to switch a couple times to get there, but eventually I got a shot in each shoulder and hopped in a taxi juuuust in time to catch one of the last buses to Aranya Prathet. I had been praying all morning that I would make it onto the 1:30 bus, and I literally got onto the bus about a minute before it drove out. The drive through the Thai countryside was pretty, but long... I arrived in Aranya Prathet and people kept trying to take me to Siem Reap (they did not believe me when I told them I was staying in Poipet, I guess). It was hard to find a tuk-tuk driver that I thought would be reliable. Finally, a guy who spoke decent English offered to take me to Thai immigration. I rode up to a dingy little table outside on the side of the road. He dropped me off there, so I thought this was the immigration office... but after several minutes of wrangling with a group of young guys trying to charge me a "service fee" for processing my visa, and pressuring me to do it quickly before the border closed, I decided I was just going to start walking east until I found the real immigration center. One of the guys handed me a phone just then, and it was Peter, one of the people in my cohort! I guess the guy knew Peter already, and recognized it when I mentioned his and Rebekah's names. I explained the situation to him, and I handed the phone back to the guy, who walked off by himself to talk to Peter. He came back and looked at me and said, "Ok, we go." We walked to the Thai immigration office, and there I met Rebekah. Thank God I made it through all right! Rebekah was so helpful in walking me through the rest of the steps, and we rode in another tuk-tuk to my guest house, which was very nice. We sat down to a dinner with Chomno, the director of CHO, and I got to know them a little bit before going to bed. My room was pretty nice but the A/C was actually too cold for me! I had to turn it off partway through the night. I guess I like sleeping in hot weather.

My first morning with CHO was interesting - we had devos at 7:30 and then I had a meeting with a guy named Leng and the rest of his agricultural team. It has been a bit hard to communicate since I've arrived, and I feel so bad I don't know any Khmer. People have to translate for me, and I feel terrible only speaking to people in English. With time, I'm hoping to learn it. It's a tonal language, so it's more difficult to learn than Romance or Germanic languages. Realistically, three months is a short period of time to learn, but I still want to make an effort to learn the more important and basic phrases.

Yesterday I met with Peter and his housemates, Pip and Jordy. Pip lives here and has been doing lots of sports ministry with kids here. She just started a running club, and last night I became its newest member! We are meeting tonight for dinner, and in November we are running in a 5K/10K here in Poipet. Physically, I've been feeling fine for the most part since I arrived, besides the usual swollen feet and swimming head. I was hoping to run my headache off yesterday, but it came back in the middle of the night. Oh well... I'm sure I'll be fine in a few days' time.

The food is great. I had lunch yesterday with Sophy, a lovely Khmer woman who just recently moved to Poipet to work for CHO. She ordered 3 dishes for us (I love Asian meals where everyone shares), and they were all delicious. Two of them had green tomatoes and pineapples cooked with fish or meat. YUM. We also visited the market, where there were some vegetables I had never seen before, but really wanted to try. If I eat something different every day I don't think I'll be able to sample all the things there are to eat here... sigh. While riding on the back of Leng's moto yesterday, we passed women carrying plates of fried caterpillars on their heads. I had the strongest urge to reach out and grab a handful as we passed.

Leng, the agricultural director, is very helpful and kind, and his wife just had their first child, a daughter. He took me around Poipet and no man's land yesterday, past the casinos and through the muddy, muddy streets. The main drag is paved and so are a few other roads but most of everything else is sticky, clayey mud. My apartment building is on the main road so there are beeps and honks and yells coming in my window during the day, not so much at night. Traffic is exhilarating to say the least - everyone drives giving less berth and caution than I am used to, but there seems to be very little road rage as a result.

I have to head over to CHO in a few minutes, but I will post some more pictures later.