I went out with Menghun at 10:10 to meet the previous resident Maggie at 10:30 at Jars of Clay, a popular coffee shop and small restaurant among expats and tourists. We got a moto there and then waited 30 minutes, but no one showed up. I needed a few things from the store, so we went next door to the Russian Market (not to be confused with the Psar Russei!!). What a crazy place. It was all indoors and really really tight. Things were sort of divided by categories like food, clothes, shoes, handcrafts, etc. The clothes section in particular felt so claustrophobic and like a big fire hazard. There was no way I was getting out of there in time if a fire broke out! I ended up getting a pair of shoes for the shower and a smaller towel ($2 eacb). It seemed like the towel was a bit pricey (she started at $3.50 but I got it for $2), but I guess I am just used to shopping at really, really cheap places, even in the US.
After the market, we stopped back by the coffee shop, but the person still wasn't there so we just went home. When I checked my email, I saw that we were supposed to meet at 2:30pm instead of 10:30am!!! Sheesh! All the girls at the dorm laughed at me, and it was pretty funny :) So, I went back at 2:30 but this time by myself. I was pretty impressed with myself. I ended up meeting with Maggie that time, and she explained a lot of things to me, which was wonderful. We then went over to Java Cafe, which is a coffee shop and art gallery owned by a woman from New Hampshire who has been living here for 13 years. She and the two previous leadership residents have been working on a lecture series, which will be held on Sundays from 4-5pm at Monument Bookstore. The series will be about empowerment for women and will include women speakers from the World Bank and Oxfam and maybe even the U.S. ambassador to Cambodia. It is a fabulous series, and I am very excited for it. It will start next Sunday, and I will go early to help get everything set up. Some of the wome are American, others are Khmer, and one is Lao. A few might speak in Khmer, so a few of the advanced English students from the dorm might act as translators for them at the talk. Although the series is really for the young women from the dorm, it will be open to the public. This will provide an excellent networking opportunity for all of the women from the dorm! Right now, there are speakers lined up for 6 weeks, but I can continue to work on finding additional speakers to add to the list, which I definitely will try to do.
After that, I took a tuk-tuk home, which is a small carriage pulled by a moto. They came from India where they often are pulled by bicycles instead. It was a nice ride back, but more expensive than the moto. $2 for the tuk tuk and about fifty cents for a moto going the same distance. I was glad to be in the tuk-tuk though because it is covered and it started raining on the way home. My first Cambodian rain, but definitely not the last!
Here are some pictures from and of the dorm. This one is the view from the blacony on the 3rd floor, which is where my room is.
Right across the small street from the dorm is this stand, which sells coconuts -->
Here is a neat view of the little street the dorm is on. As you can tell, it isn't a very nice street. You might be able to see the place the polishes wooden furniture on the right side of the street.
This is what the blaconies of the dorm look like. The girls keep racks of their clothes on the balcony to dry. When it rains, they have to move the whole thing inside. Each floor has 12 people who live on it and has two of these racks for clothes.
Here is a picture looking down at the courtyard inside the dorm. Sometimes it is filled with all of the motos. Not all of the girls have one, but a lot of them do.
Saturday, July 4
Yesterday I really didn't do very much. I didn't even leave the 3rd floor of the dorm until 5:30pm if you can believe it. I worked on the computer and tried to arrange my schedule of classes for the girls. I also finally got to talk to my mom, dad, and sister on skype chat for a little bit, which was nice. At dinner time I wasn't really hunger so I decided to venture to the other floors and see some of the girls there. I know all of the names on the 3rd floor, but I am still struggling with some of the other ones.
After dinner 6 or 8 of us took motos out to the Night Market, which is close to the river and past the Royal Palace. It was nice out because it had rained a lot in the afternoon and evening. It also was nice to drive around at night because you couldn't see all of the trash. The market was nice. Mostly Khmer but a few foreigners wandering around. Things for sale (clothes, jewelry, scarves) and lots of food stands. There also was some live music and singing with a big crowd. Out that way, we drove past some of the big, fancy hotels like Hotel Cambodiana and the big, new hotel that also has a casino and other areas in it.
At the market we got papaya salad and some sodas. The salad was quite different from what I've had in the US at Vietnamese restaurants. I should have taken a close-up picture but did not. There was the papaya but then also some chiles, peanuts, other pieces of veggies, and then oddly enough tiny little black crab claws. But, you aren't supposed to eat the claws - they are just for a little taste and for show. The girls said they were salt and didn't taste good. I paid for my soda, but then they wouldn't let me pay for any of the salads (we got 4 for everyone to share). I need to fingure out some way to buy things because they are very sneaky sometimes!
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