"Cambodians are like Spider-Man..."

Well, I have been in Cambodia for a week now. I'm still not quite sure what to make of it. The people are really nice so far so thats been really good. I have yet to make a lot of friends whom I can hang out with after work. I'm actually not quite sure how to go about doing that. Most of the Cambodians my age or older are married and have kids and I havent found a big ex-pat scene yet either. Most of this stems from the fact that I still dont know where anything is in the city as of yet, but I'm managing.

Work has been slow up till now. They have a reluctance to assign me to anything yet as the current director is leaving quite soon and the new director has yet to arrive. They are waiting for Dora, the new director, to arrive so that she can figure out what to do with me. I've been trying to go around and find work for myself, but its rather difficult as the office staff is quite small and most of them are out a lot. The only other American here in our office is quite new himself (he's only been here a month) so its a big transition period right now. Perry, the new medical officer, has asked me to figure out the prevalence and number of HIV cases in all the different provinces, something you would think they already have. Turns out, its all based on assumptions and estimates. It was quite fun trying to track down all the appropriate numbers, but I managed. Needless to say, Ive spent a lot of time reading documents to try to familiarize myself with the programs here.

I met with the ARSO (Assistant Regional Security Officer) yesterday, which was my first foray into the US Embassy. I have one word for the Embassy- Fancy. I got an Embassy badge, which is quite useful as I can now go into the Embassy at any time for any reason. They have an ATM and a small library which were my personal highlights of the tour. Anyway, back to the ARSO. He wasn't near as scary as the RSO guys in Lima, so I did appreciate him much more. However, he did strongly suggest that they put bars on my apartment windows, even though I'm on the second floor, because the "Cambodian's are like Spider-Man, they don't need any suction cups to climb walls here." They are also installing a new door in my guest bedroom as the one that's there now would be demolished with a good kick of my flip-flops. I'm also getting a lot of new deadbolts. I feel like I might be living in a prison because of these things, albeit a very pretty one. Please refer here for pictures: http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059801&id=11401382&l=5a25db480b Turns out my shower leaks horribly as well. They were supposed to fix that today, so I'll have to see about that. All in all, the apartment management is extremely accomodating because I am the first American from the Embassy that they have been able to lure in so they want to keep me and have me spread the good word. They are even trying to find me a rocking chair...yep, thats right, a rocking chair. :)

I have had a couple of Cambodian meals now and I have to say, I'm not terribly impressed. Perhaps I have not been going to the right restaurants. Yesterday, we went to lunch and I ordered Fried noodles with combination pork. Now, we weren't quite sure what "combination" meant but I decided to go for it. Turns out that wasn't such a good idea. Combination apparently means that they throw every type of seafood available in with your pork. Now we all know that I don't eat seafood and here comes my plate piled high with big ole pieces of squid and other indiscernible seafood entities. I was shaking my head no the whole time and the waitresses didn't quite understand what I was so appalled at. Luckily, the nice Cambodian lady next to me spoke English so she translated that I was not expecting seafood and that I just wanted pork, so they brought me out just pork. Crisis averted.

Well, I should probably go back to work now. I'll leave you with this thought about Embassy security from my boss: "I never understood why they would put 30 minute doors into 5 minute walls..." I'll explain later.