I am living with a new host family. From left to right, meet Kumpheak, Toum, Thary with little Sreylis, Yea, and Sarom.

I moved in March first. My new family is bigger and much more interactive with me, which I like. Thary is a midwife at the health center, so I have known her for a while. Sarom, her husband, is a stay at home dad and spends most of his time taking care of 19 months old Sreylis and their 13-year-old son Kumpheak. A stay at home dad and a working wife is an atypical arrangement for a rural Cambodian family.

Sreylis toddles around offering endless fun and joy. I feel good that I can speak Khmer better than her too, although I think she understands it better than me. Kumpheak is super nice, helpful around the house, shy, but always cheerful.

Toum is Thary’s younger sister. She runs the family’s small neighborhood shop in the front yard.

It does a booming local business selling coffee, rice wine, ice, and small household needs. Toum is quite camera shy, so for now you only get to see her shop. The shop is very popular especially with the neighborhood kids supplying them with treats. She also does most of the cooking here at the house, which is excellent. Although Sarom is quite renowned for his cooking as well. He is often hired to cook for large community events like weddings.

Ouch Touch, who everyone calls Yeah (which means grandmother) is Thary and Toum’s mother. She is super active gardening, cleaning, and keeping everything here in order. Her husband, Grandpa Som Mon (not pictured), I have never heard speak a word, to me or any one. Quite the opposite of his wife, he sits all day in his bed on the right side of the shop, and I have never seen him venture further than 10 feet from it.

We also have a rooster, 3 hens, numerous chicks, 3 cats, and two dogs. Between the rooster and the dogs that bark and howl all night, I have not had a full nights sleep in two months.

The house itself is not much different from my previous one. In fact my room is essentially the same, but slightly bigger at about 12 by 16 feet.

It’s on the second floor, wood with gaps between the exterior wallboards, and has two shuttered windows. Oh, and it has this styling wall paper with pictures of western babies and random Cambodian wedding photos.

A major differences lie in my overall physical comfort and the cleanliness of my new home. The lack of cement underfoot and metal carport roofing is much more agreeable to me. The surrounding yard, which is bigger,  is sand covered, and actually feels cleaner than the cement covered yard of my previous home. The greater property is a mango orchard. For almost two months have been eating fresh mango everyday. There is also sugar cane and banana trees growing around the house.

Why a Move?

Stories of my previous host family’s wealth captured the attention of those that are responsible for my well being, and it was decided that their side business (which I think is actually probably their primary business) of lending money, creates a safety and security concern for me. I received a phone call out of the blue one day informing me that I need to find a new host family.

Although they have been extremely nice and accommodating, living with them was challenging. I never achieved total comfort. I never found their home to be physically comfortable or warmhearted. Living with them was more of a tenant relationship and I felt like I was living in garage with nowhere comfortable to be.

Ironically, I just made peace with my situation days before receiving notice of my imminent move, which unsettled me. The several weeks leading to my move were stressful. Sah Paun’s wedding was in the works, and being a small community, everyone knows everybody and their business. Especially mine, as I am somewhat of a celebrity simply because of my foreign status. I had been asked to snoop around looking for possible new candidate families, and doing so made me very uncomfortable. I did not want the family to know because I did not know how moving would be perceived and I am quite ill equipped linguistically to adequately explain the situation.

The move day came. After looking at several other families in the community, Thary, and her husband Sarom offered to take me in to their home. With translating and negotiating assistance from Reaksmay, our Safety and Security Officer, the situation was amicably explained to my old family. I did not move far, I now live in the house next door, so i still see my old family often.