Sometimes in Cambodia…
…your team leader tells the host he’d like to try frog legs, and the next day there are two full plates of deep fried frogs for lunch.
…you look forward every day to the $1 slushies at the place with Wifi…and become very depressed when it closes down halfway through the month.
…you go for a walk and happen upon a house blessing ceremony, complete with dragons and knife jugglers.
..you are put in front of a class full of teenagers, by yourself, and told to teach English for an hour. Ready, go!
…you nearly step on a snake when coming out of the squatty potty at nighttime.
…you try to join a Jazzercise class in the park, but they shoo you away when you don’t pay.
…while eating dinner, a little scorpion friend comes to meet you.
…you forget to act like a Christian when you play card games with your team.
…while innocently moving some of your stuff, you uncover a huge and very fast spider.
…you meet random white people who are doing crazier things than you are, like circumnavigating the globe.
…strangers hand you their naked babies.
…you play Christian music in front of the Buddhist statue in the park.
…you are woken up at 5am by firecrackers every day of the Chinese New Year’s celebration.
…you pay money to let fish nibble at your feet.
…while playing with the kids at the school, you kick a ball directly into a teacher’s face.
…you spend hours working with teachers on pronouncing the words “fish” and “face” correctly.
…you are asked (by a teacher) how to pronounce the following words: sick/six/sex.
…you can’t sleep at night because either a) it’s too stinking hot, b) it’s windy and the branches of the mango tree keep slamming into the tin roof, or c) the funeral just down the street plays music over loudspeakers All. Night. Long.
…a lizard is shot out of the air conditioner and lands on your sleeping pad. And sometimes, just a lizard tail.
“I’d offer you a Tums, but they’re covered in bug spray.”
“I’m a never-ending snot factory.”
“I can’t focus on a serious conversation right now. I need to go walk on my hands.”
“Do not drink the coffee. It tastes like mud that was trampled by cows after they pooped in it.”
“No one messes with a guy who has a velociraptor.”
