It's not quite yet the rainy season, and I guess at the end of the dry season here, the world has been cooking for so long that heat has wormed its way everywhere, the walls, the air, bones, skin. Air-conditioning pushes it back for very short time, the epic battle of our time. I imagine the cold air doesn't even make it to the walls, just hovering there with the heat, waiting on the other side.
I took a friend's moto out for a spin today, as I'd like to more or less know what I'm doing by the time I buy one of my own in a couple weeks. It was in the heat of the day, and the sun basically laughed at my SPF 15 sunscreen and, while I'm not burned to a crisp, my skin is noticeably darker. I was out for 25 minutes, maximum.
When the rains do come, as they are currently doing, it cools everything down for a brief and incredibly welcome time. I've learned to tell that the hottest, heaviest days are usually the ones where the storm is coming. Whenever I do leave the bubble tea place that is my newest addiction, the rain will be gently leaking from the sky and the air will be cool against my skin.
The bubble tea place was introduced to me by a friend this week, and we became quickly inseparable. My apartment cooks in the day time, and since my room has no windows, staying in there with its flourescent lights is not that appealing, despite the air-con. I'm starting back with my old job this week and my free time will be cut down, but for the moment I've had a lot to spare and no interest in staying at home, so I've been here the past three afternoons, drinking bubble tea and working. I'm busy cooking my latest project.
I picked up a book the other day about moving to Cambodia, a kind of all-inclusive guide for expats. I flipped through it out of curiosity. I remember reading stuff like that, about ten months ago, CultureShock manuals and articles my somewhat panicked mother (she has since calmed down, by the way) sent me.
It was all useful information, but it seemed strange to see it on a page like that, that it was necessary to take this life and string it into words, paint pictures with language. I thought, reading the safety section, that the words made this place feel much scarier than it does, but then again, I don't walk anywhere late at night or carry purses that are easily pulled off anymore.
Mostly, it was just strange to look at all these words, trying to explain something that I'm living, day by day, things I've known intellectually since before arriving but am only truly understanding now. It was a reminder that I'm here, yes here, in this place that before was barely even a word in my mental dictionary. Yes, it is a place that needs to be bashed into words for westerners coming to live, and even those are completely inadequate for the daily negotiations. Some people do it more than others -- some trying to bash the world into the words they already know, some just trying to learn the language of life as each word presents itself, some diving deeper, to find what is underneath the words.
Really, what I mean to say is, I looked at the words and saw a surface, and underneath an ocean. Every day here is spent in that ocean, drinking in what you started to know before now, and are only knowing now.
No comments:
Post a Comment