It's hard to have legs here...

This will be a straight-forward update on what I'm currently doing, but first I want to tell you about how hard it is to have legs here in Cambodia. I'm not making light of people who have no limbs - there are tons here who have lots a leg or both legs to land mines... Their plight is not a joke to me. Fortunately there are NGO's (Non-Government Organizations) established to help them get established and cope with life.

Ok, so back to my point about how hard it is to have legs here. I feel like mine have taken an absolute beating and then some. I haven't stepped on a mine, granted, but I've definitely taken a beating. In my first moto "incident" I scraped the skin off my left calve (not badly). That's pretty much healed up. But, in trying to jump-start the moto for the first time I had to really kick it, and my foot slipped and the kick stand totally ate up my right shin. That is still red and scabbed over. I mean the kick stand dug in good....

Then, in a soccer match, I was trying to slide tackle a guy and ended up scraping my left knee up really bad. The funny thing is, I did it again on the exact same spot in the next match. Moving on, I pronated my right foot in a soccer match - you should have seen the "field" we played on...try cow pasture instead - and now I think I may have planar fasciaitis or something like that. It hurts really bad. I need to stop playing soccer for a month but just can't let go. Then....let's see.....oh yeah the constant heat here makes my ankles swell for some reason. I think it's combined with lack of water or too much salt in the diet or something like that, but by the end of the day I got some major cankles going on.

Also, I've burned my leg twice on hot moto exhaust pipes. Once on that of my own... Oh yeah, and at all-country training I rented a moto to check out the surroundings. Turns out the front brake didn't work - thanks for telling me, Kep Lodge! - and the moto went flying down a gravel-covered embankment, ejecting me at just the right angle to run a half-inch gravel burn down my left leg. Oh yeah! And then on the way home from all-country training our taxi broke down (read two blogs previous), and we had to stand on the side of the road for an hour-and-a-half and my legs got tore up by the Cambodian version of fire ants. There are red whelps all over them, some on top of previous injuries.

I supposed the moral of the story is don't play soccer and don't ride motos if you want nice-looking legs. Otherwise.... I dunno... I forgot what I was going to say.

On to more important things.... I've been playing the waiting game with my school. The school year was pushed back a month because of the elections, I found out. I can understand why; two elections ago they had tanks in the streets. We really can't relate to that kind of uncertainty. Lots could be said about that, but in realtion to me it means I don't start teaching until November 15th. We've been living in a team member's house - by we I mean my two team mates for the NPIC campus - and it turns out we will continue staying in his house on the weekends. I've made a sweet pad out of the roof-top room. I'll blog just about that soon, with photos for sure. I love it and wish I could stay there permanently. But alas, to stay there would violate my #1 rule for Southeast Asia: If it's convenient and/or would make you happy, it's probably not gonna happen. Many would chide me for my pessimism, but you'd be surprised how true that rules holds. Besides, if it's occasionally broken then you're pleasantly surprised.

So back to what I'm doing. Tomorrow, the Peters and I will - fingers crossed - move all our belongings onto campus. We bought some cheap, wicker furniture a couple days ago, and will take that along with clothes, groceries, and household supplies to our little campus apartments. My first night there will be interesting, to say the least.

In other news, this week begins the Khmer festival of P'chum Ben. It's basically their version of Halloween. To learn more, google it. I'll try to take some pictures this coming Monday when the big event takes place and maybe blog about the goings on. My point in mentioning P'chum Ben is that I'll be taking the holiday weekend to visit the town I used to work in here - Kampong Thom. This is one of my favorite places on earth, and it will be interesting to see how it is after three years. To see Sue and the orphanage again will do me worlds of good. Or, actually now that I think about it seeing Sue and the orphanage might make things worse. I could end up wanting to stay.

Well...that's all from this end. Lift up my soon-to-be students and our move to campus. Keep me in mind and don't hesitate to email! pmeredith@elic.org

Grace and peace,

Bryant