For the past couple of weeks my team has been teaching English at Shalom International School in a little town outside of Phenom Penh, Cambodia. The conditions here are just what you would expect for the Race (sweltering hot, lots of bugs and bunking on the floor of the school), but despite the physical toughness we are still having fun and enjoying working with the students and teachers here!
The school is on holiday for the next few days because of the Cambodian New Year (raise your glasses to the year 2561)! So thanks to Buddha’s birthday we get a few days to recuperate from the heat before finishing out the month.
Just to give you an idea of what it has been like to live in Cambodia, here is a list that paints a picture of daily life. You may never need this, but here are 11 unmistakable ways to know you are a Racer in Cambodia:
11. Your daily conversations include statements like, “There were a lot of ants in my pasta today” and “It smells like a locker room in here.”
10. You find yourself daydreaming about what it would feel like to sit in an ice bath.
9. Your roommates check each other for lice almost daily.
8. You rejoice when it rains.
7. Every child you pass on the street waves hello. Every. Child. And it is worth betting that they are the sweetest looking kids you have ever seen.
6. The lady you bought your vegetables from in the market offers to drive you home on her moto.
5. Your lunch costs $1.30…including the drink.
4. You shower once a day but you look, feel and smell like it should be at least once an hour.
3. The feels like temperature is 110 degrees…resulting in heat rash. So. Much. Heat rash.
2. You may stop sweating between the hours of 2:00am-3:00am. Emphasis on may.
And the #1 way to know you are a Racer in Cambodia??
1. Within 48 hours you may discover one of the following things: A crab crawling on you in the night, a cockroach eating flesh off your finger in the night or a dead scorpion in your sleeping bag liner that you must have smashed without realizing it in the night.
Yes, all of those things have happened to us this month.
Thanks for being a part of this from afar! Please pray we have the renewed strength to keep pouring out this month and for the next 4 that we have ahead of us.
Here are some pictures to keep paining the picture!
Julia and her lunch bug!
Cleaning up around the school.
What did I tell you? Cutest kids! And there’s more where that came from.
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Our room! It looks basically inviting…All the bugs think so, too.
Two kids in my class, Theareach and Oudom.
Cheata. She is the sweetest.
I started letting the kids take pictures with my camera. I am actually impressed!
Morning time.
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Evening time.
