one month and counting…

We met at Korsang at 6:30 am to take a tuk tuk to “Russian hospital” (the commonly used name for the Khmer Soviet Friendship Hospital). It is here that the new methadone clinic will be located, on the first floor of the Mental Health building. There are 7 of us from Korsang who will be traveling to Sihanoukville for a capacity building training for the staff involved with the new clinic. Myself, Korsang’s doctor, two case workers and three outreach workers. We sit to have breakfast in the outdoor restaurant at the hospital while we wait for the others to arrive. When service lists the food available, I am excited when I recognized words and can order for myself in Khmer. I sit and sip my baw baw dtrayee (rice porridge with fish) and iced coffee and listen to the chit chat around me. I am the only barang around, and the conversation is in Khmer. I can’t understand much, but I’m beginning to be able to pick out words. I am suddenly filled with that sudden feeling of profound realization. This is my new life: new food, new co-workers, new language.

This feeling stays with me on the bus trip to the coast.  It’s only slightly after 7am, and the city is bustling. The bus slow moving in the morning traffic. We pass makeshift markets set-up street side, where vegetables, fruit, herbs, eggs and meat are sold off of wooden tables or blankets on the ground.  Push carts serve up noodles, soups and strong sweet iced coffee. School children, teens and college students in mandatory white and blue uniforms ride their bikes or are driven on motos to school yards where the teachers wait at the front gate to welcome them. Outside of the city center, there are no white expats and no tourists. Just daily Kampuchea life happening. As I sleepily take in this new world I inhabit, curious eyes meet mine. The “Khmer stare” (as we call it) is not meant to be rude, invasive or aggressive. It simply is… a stare. While at first I found it unnerving, I know appreciate it for what it is, and stare back.  People are quick to reciprocate a smile.

We drive South and then West. This is my first time in this part of the country. The city gives way to flat agricultural land covered in rice patties, irrigation channels and rows of palms. Houses perch on stilts in a traditional construction that takes factors in the monsoon season and inevitable flooding. Since the rainy season is only just ended, the vegetation is incredibly lush and green, juxtaposed with the vibrant red earth carved out into roads and paths cutting through the fields. Water lilies and lotus blossom in bright pinks. The flat land gradually gives way to hilly jungle as we near the coast. I breathe in the beauty, my eyes appreciating the sights of this new land and my ears full of Khmeraoke songs playing on the bus’s TV.

We stop for snacks: green mango with salty-spicy-sweet granulated dip, sticky rice wrapped around bananas and/or cononut and roasted in banana leaves, and Pringles. I try to chat with some of the clinical staff, who say my Khmer is very ch’bah (clear) even though I speak yeut yeut (slowly). With my limited understanding, I gather that if I keep on learning, I will ni-yaye pia saa khmai jrarn (speak a lot of Khmer language) in a few months. I hope so. Right now I’m using a lot of “neeh ya gay?” (this is what?) and ta maik? (what? Repeat?) and parroting back the unfamiliar sounds over and over. M’dawng dtik, m’dawng dtik, little by little, I’m piecing it all together.