All Creatures Great and Small

This is our new pet. Sort of. I guess we kind of just found him in our room one day, and he hasn’t left. Welllllll – he leaves when the light is turned on or if we make a loud noise. But lately at night, just when I turn the light on, I can catch him in his tracks and we both sort of stare at each other and I grab the camera, and try to take a few shots before he runs away.

I have mixed feelings on whether or not I like him. I sort of do. I mean, look at him….he’s kind of interesting and cute. His fingers are interesting – sort of something you’d expect on a tropical reptile of sorts….and I guess he’s pretty quiet and probably the only harm he’s doing is eating other bugs; which at least isn’t harmful to me. So I do suppose he’s a good pet to have.

But then at the same time, I don’t really much want him crawling on me when I sleep. Not that it would crawl on me while I slept, as I’m sure it’s MUCH more scared of us than I would ever be of it, plus I have a mosquito net (note, a mosquito net, not a reptile net) – but still – sometimes you just think about things like that when you see something like that hanging out in your bedroom.

Will likes him. He’s named him, ‘Home-slice’ but I think we can think of a better name.

Nonetheless, at least I now finally know what creature is leaving the larger sized droppings on the floor every once-in-a-while in the mornings. In some way, I do feel comfort in knowing that it is this creature that is leaving the droppings – rather than some HUGE rat. I guess,….at least I know that I like this thing better than a rat. I don’t know why. Maybe because it’s cuter than a rat? Mice can be kind of cute. But I definitely would freak out at a huge rat. Yes. Most definitely would. I hear of some stories from volunteers down south having hand to hand combat with rats. I’ve seen two enormous rats in Siem Reap. One was dead – in the middle of a gravel road; I’m talking large kitten sized. And one was scurrying along the Siem Reap river edge at water festival. That one was enough to arouse the many onlookers sitting on the grass watching the races.

This thing did get a little yelp/mini-scream out of me when I saw it for the first time, but then I settled down after I had a moment to examine it. Sigh.

Anyways…. least it’s not a rat.

An Intricate Hair Cutting Experience.

Janice, my friend - who’s a volunteer in Kralang, about 50k west of the town I live in, has quickly become my shopping buddy in town as neither of the boys can spend NEARLY as much time in all the markets just looking around at everything the vendors have to offer as we can. Will claims that we shop together so that we can justify what he claims to be our many unnecessary purchases. Maybe it’s true? But I won’t comment on that now. I guess girls just like to shop together and I don’t think there’s any harm in that.

Anyhow on Sunday at about 3:00 in the afternoon we were shopped out (we did start at 9am) – and we had a little time to kill before the concert we were going to that evening. We weren’t quite ready to go home so we decided to both treat ourselves to a haircut.

We went to the Lucky Mall (it’s the brand new mall in Siem Reap, it even has escalators) and went to the upstairs department store – which is really nice. I suppose it’s where all the rich people in the country, go to buy their clothes; as items there were very much out of my reach, even if I were stateside – but I suppose maybe a lot of the stuff is geared towards foreign tourists too.

Anyway – the department store is really nice. It’s fully air-conditioned … maybe almost a little too cold. It’s decorated in all white, with bright lights and white tile, and sparkling clean floors. We both almost felt like we were literally too dirty to be walking around in there. (It’s easy to get dirty just by walking and biking around town, when sweating and all the dust floating around sticks to ya). Janice commented on how being inside of this place that was decorated so perfectly and white made it feel like we had died and gone to heaven. I guess it did sort of have that aura, especially since our everyday lives DEFINITELY do NOT have that feel.

Anyhow we walked over to the salon where they had a list of all the different things you could get done and their prices. (Keep in mind a haircut at the local market is about $1 - $2). Haircuts here ranged from $6-8, a wash and blow dry was another $6 – and the list went on up if you were getting a color, or perm, or manicure/pedicure etc.

We decided what the heck, we were in town and thought we’d treat ourselves. I hadn’t had a haircut since I left – and the last haircut I had was super short with many layers; and I thought I’d get it all evened out as I want to grow it out.

Side note: I thought that having short hair was a good idea before coming here. It WAS until I realized how much I sweat on a regular basis, and that my hair never really dried during the day and it’d be nice if I could just put it back in a pony tail. – I’ve learned that now – and this haircut may be one of the last ones I get in a long time, because I can’t wait for it to be long! Anyhoo….

I asked to get a wash and a cut. So I went in, sat in my chair and then the woman in charge of washing hair came over.

This was the longest wash at a salon I’ve ever experienced. It started out with a full scalp massage which lasted about 10 minutes. Then she brought me over to the sink to wash and condition. Yet more massaging took place there. Then when I went back to my chair she continued to massage my scalp and then neck and shoulders. It was amazing, and TOTALLY worth it!

During that time, I was watching the head stylist of the salon trim the hair of another customer. She is good. She is precise. I think she knows what she’s doing pretty darn well.

Finally it was my turn. I told her that I just wanted to even everything out – because I want to grow it long. Maybe a slight angled bob with longer hair in the front, but overall pretty even.

She said okay.

Then the next 30 minutes I sat in silence while she eyed up every strand that she took to cut. It was kind of fun to watch her work. You could tell she took her profession very seriously; and that she gives a good hair cut every time. She worked with her hands so carefully. She is an artist.

Finally after every perfect snip had been done, she got around to getting the blow dryer out and drying it. Again here – she was VERY precise. She went all around several times with her round brush, holding the blow dryer in certain angles to get the hair to fluff up and straighten and curl in all the exact places. During this 15 of minutes of time – I was having the internal battle of: a) enjoying the fact that this woman is doing such a wonderful job on my hair – and b) wanting to tell her not to worry about it too much because as soon as she was done, I was going to have to go outside into the heat, and put on my bicycle helmet which will smash it all down again as I ride home. I decided to go with option B and watch her work and enjoy the fact that she was doing such a wonderful job.

I swear the woman only said 2 things to me over the 1 hour and 15 minute time period. I suppose it’s best not to interrupt her concentration. She was very into her work.

Towards the end of the blow-drying session, she took my parted hair that I originally parted, and then took more hair from the left side to make more of a side sweep angled part. And then in a very soft, gentle, feminine voice with an accent she said, “Maybe, this the style.” I sort of chuckled inside, not to laugh at her but,…………… because she took her work so seriously – and had the very stereotypical Asian voice with broken English suggesting to me what the current trend and fashion was is in hair nowadays. I replied with an assuring, “Yes! Sure!” So she went on her way parting it perfectly and blow drying it just a little more dramatically to the side.

After she had finished her masterpiece….and had every hair in perfect place, she asked me in her same gentle, quiet, calm and feminine but confident voice, “You like spray?” I said, “Sure” – and she put a plastic protector thing in front of my face while she put hair-spray in my hair. Even her moves while putting in the hair spray were so delicate, yet precise. Carefully spraying right in the perfect spots to make sure her finished product would stay in place.

After that, she handed me the hand-mirror. She spun the chair around, I looked at the back and side profiles, and said, “Thank you! I like it very much!” She said, “you’re welcome.”

And that was that.

I went up to the counter, paid and walked out the door, out of the department store and over to my bike which I had locked to a tree. I unlocked it, grabbed my helmet, then sighed as I slid it onto my head and biked home in time to get ready for the concert.

Awareness Concert at Angkor Wat

So this weekend we were all in Siem Reap for a concert at Angkor Wat. It was pretty good – and needless to say the backdrop was amazing. It was hosted by MTV Exit, in an effort to raise awareness on human trafficking and sex exploitation, both of which are a huge problem in Asia. The Siem Reap volunteers were lucky in that we all got free tickets because one of the MTV staff persons used to be a Peace Corps volunteer in Thailand and he invited everyone in this province to go to the show. So that was pretty cool. It was a mix of artists including the most famous musicians in Cambodia, one Australian woman – Katie Miller-Heidke, one band from England - Placebo, and Click 5 from America. Out of all of them in my opinion, Katie Miller-Heidke is worth checking out- entertaining and clever lyrics. But overall a neat experience and a good cause and we all feel really lucky to have been able to attend.

A few more favs

 
 
 
 

Notes From Will

I realized the other day that I was starting to embrace the Cambodian culture when I asked Stephanie if she wanted to have scrambled eggs and rice.

Class was interrupted the other day by the school director and the head of discipline. The head of discipline came in yielding a scissors. All of the male students had to stand up while the school director pointed out hair cuts that he felt were too long. Four students had random patches of hair cut off their head. They all took it without saying anything. After the free trims, the school director decided to use me as an example (his English is limited), “Look at Will’s hair, it is short, he is beautiful.” One of the students in the front row corrected him with a whisper, “he’s handsome.” The school director blushed slightly and said I was handsome and then left.


Will.

A Few Favorite Pics Posted.

 
 
 
 

spiders and such

So there are these large spiders in this country. I suppose I should do some research on them to see if they’d actually do any harm to anyone other than the insects less superior than them. Their mere size and ugliness is enough to get me standing on a chair in the middle of the room to make sure my bare feet are nowhere them when they are crawling around the floor. Boy they can move fast.

Will’s mom was asking me if at our new place we still had creepy crawly creatures in it (since we’re now on the main floor and it’s tiled and nice). Well- the answer is, Yes. We still do have these large spiders creeping around.

I just had to take a time out from my education entry to call Will to the room to put to the death yet another long legged spider. He slipped on his loafers, grabbed the hand broom and I pointed to where it was at. It’s a quick moving insect and he had to take several swings, which scared it behind the laundry basket – and then when he cornered it he was able to take one hard strike at it and be done with it. It was almost as good as watching an intense fencing match.

Friday morning, I was in for a surprise when I went to grab some toilet paper while in the bathroom. On the holder- there is a plastic cover that protects the tp from getting wet. When I went to lift up the cover to grab a few sheets, to my surprise – was yet another one of these creatures, right on the top of the roll. I calmly, but sternly blurted out a PG13 swear word and said to Will the command sentence, “get in here, now.” I left the room and listened to the hand broom smack the floor several times and above is the digital macro zoom of the spider on the handbroom.

I don’t know. It’s ugly enough for me to not want it crawling on me while I sleep. We think that we’ve spotted fangs on it. I guess I’m not positive of the anatomy of the thing, and I suppose I should do some research as to whether or not it’s poisonous or anything. But our host dad did say that it can bite. So I guess pretty much I don’t want to upset it without knowing that it will be dead in a few minutes, but I do know that I don’t mind it being dead.

Lately, I find myself taking a lot of double-takes any time I think I see something out of the corner of my eye. Is it a spider? Is it a lizard? Is it a mouse? Is it a rat? Is it a scorpion? Is it a snake? I guess 80% of the time I don’t actually see anything – but sometimes my peripheral vision comes to my rescue so I can alert my dear husband to help me rid of the thing. I’m so glad he’s here with me. 