My new assigned village, where I will be living and working in for the next two years, is in Takeo Provence, the same Provence where I trained. So, in the big picture I have not moved too far, but my village is several hours away in the southeastern corner of the Provence. It is quite remote and isolated. I am 15K from the nearest paved road, and there is no public transportation to or from where I live. That’s a little more than 9 miles for you non-metric folks. I am also within sight of the Vietnam boarder.

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In my first weeks, I am really feeling the isolation of this place. Not being able to communicate easily is perhaps the biggest part of it. I speak the Khumer language like a 3 year old, there are only a few English speakers here, and their English is only a little better than my K’mai. Clearly, I will not be seeing many of my friends back home for quite a while. I probably also will not be seeing many of my fellow volunteers, or any other English speakers over the next two years.

My first order of business “at site” as we say, is to settle in with my new host family (more on them later) and learn as much as I can about my new community. This is of course a challenge with my limited language skills. Geographically my village sits on the vast Mekong River Delta surrounded by wide open rice fields. It would likely feel more jungle like, if not for all the rice fields. It is flat as a pancake here. I can see some hills in the distance, but none are within easy reach of where I am. I am really missing the cool mountains of my Colorado home. It is hot and humid all the time. Currently it is the rainy season, so lately I have been getting some relief as the cloud cover and daily rain cools off the days and nights a bit.

There is a small market that seems to have the essentials. But for anything of luxury I will need to travel to a larger town.

The village overall has a somewhat poor, dirty, and unkempt feel with more plastic and trash strewn about than I have seen anywhere yet. There is a Wat (Buddhist temple) in the village, which in my experience serves in most Asian communities as a thriving focal point for the community. This one oddly seems nearly vacant and badly neglected. The grounds are a bit shabby, covered with trash and the whole place has an abandoned feel to it. I am told there are about 10 monks here but I have not yet seen them.

On my first day, I was excited to see a bank in my town. I have a Cambodian bank account to manage my finances. Unfortunately, as I learned on my second day when I went to this bank to withdraw funds to pay my host family rent, I cannot make withdrawals from this branch; it is only a loan office. Therefore, whenever I need money I have to make the 30K round-trip bike ride to the next town where there is a branch I can withdrawal funds from.

There are no land line phones here. Most people, myself included have a cell phone. I also have a USB Internet modem that allows me to connect to the Internet through the cell towers. This technology helps a lot with fighting the feeling of isolation. It also typifies the strange fusion of the modern and the past that exists here.