home sweet home

I’m not going to lie: when I imagined living in Cambodia, I thought I’d be living in a hut.

After a week and a half here, I have yet to see any huts. But there are quite a few shacks, rickety old structures that are propped up on wooden stilts, looking like they are one strong gush of wind away from toppling over.

As we drove down the dirt road on the way to my host home last week, I held my breath. The interesting thing about Cambodia is that the poor and wealthy are intermingled, so the drive went a little something like: bump, pothole, shack, mansion, shack, puddle, concrete, wood, beeeeep, tuk-tuk, beeeep, bike, shack, mansion.

Though I was mentally preparing for a shack, I was crossing all of my fingers and toes, hoping beyond hope for a solid structure. Imagine my relief, then, when this is what we pulled up to:

A far cry from a mud hut or a rickety shack. I let out a sigh of relief.

See the pink and white curtains in the top right window?  That’s my room!  It’s private, cozy, perfect.
From time to time I share my room with a few geckos and a colony of ants and when we lose power at night and I sleep the window open, hoping for a breeze, I wake up with a few dozen new mosquito bites. (Don’t worry, I have a mosquito net and I’m taking malaria medicine).

I honestly can’t even tell you how many people live here with me; the number seems to change on a daily basis. Extended family members come and go, staying for a few weeks before returning home or visiting another relative. I’ve given up on trying to keep count; my new goal is to learn everyone’s name. With all the moving around that goes on, this might take me all summer.

One of the more interesting pieces of furniture in the house is our “kitchen table.” At dinner time, we gather around to “nam-by” (eat rice), sitting cross legged on top of the table. It can also double as a bed, desk, etc. The puppies like to sleep on the cool concrete underneath, and the chickens are always scurrying around it. It truly is the gathering place in our home.

Which brings me, lastly, to the outhouse. It stands next to the chicken coop, which makes me feel like I have an audience while taking my bucket showers—an unsettling feeling, to say the least. The first night, I was overwhelmed by the prospect of two months without a real shower. But after a few days, I’ve become accustomed to the wooden and tin, closet-like structure and I don’t mind it as much anymore.

With all these changes and adjustments, the real lesson I’ve learned is that when things feel overwhelming, or big, or impossible, or when you just plain don’t want to take bucket showers for two months with geckos, frogs, spiders, and chickens watching….just go to sleep. Nothing does the body or mind more good, in my opinion, then a solid night of rest. Following this philosophy, whenever I feel homesick or whenever I ache for the comforts that I’ve left behind, I lay down my head, close my eyes, and sleep. And when I wake the next morning, things don’t seem so bad.