"How long will you stay in Cambodia?"

     I am shocked to realize that I haven't posted anything in almost over a month, but considering how busy it's been and how much time it takes me to write a post, I guess I shouldn't be so surprised. There's so much to write about that I think the best I can manage are some bullet points, in no particular order. And because I've written this over the course of a week or two, I've added some updates to my update in italics where needed.

• The weather has made the full transition from rainy season to dry season. In fact, we are just now enjoying the beginning of "cold season" when we wake up to temperatures in the 70's. No more air conditioning needed at night, no more puddles to splash through when driving around town, no more worries about leaving the windows open when we leave the house and risking the rain coming in. Instead, we have to remember to water the plants on the balcony every day and sweep a bit more often as the road dust settles everywhere, but for now, the raincoats can be safely packed away for another six months. (Update: This morning it was 64 degrees and still only 68 at 10:30 am. Crazy! On the other hand, we had two days with rain last week, completely out of the blue.)
• It is interesting to notice that even though the length of the day here doesn't change nearly as much from season to season as it does back home, there is a noticeable difference. Darkness sets in completely by 6:00 pm, when it used to be still dusky at 6:30. Also the angle of the sun as it sets is different and the giant sun shade we hang on the balcony in the afternoon no longer blocks it completely.
• I ended back in Phnom Penh twice more since the first trip when we took two children for surgery. The first return trip was unplanned. One of the children had problems develop about ten days after surgery - it turned out he had a tear in the artery behind his knee. We had moved him to a guest house in Siem Reap (from his village about 90 minutes outside of town) to be near the local children's hospital while they tried to figure out what was causing his pain and swelling, and one day when I went to change his bandages, he started bleeding more than I have ever seen in my life. We were very glad to be in town, and after a couple of days staying at the local hospital, we determined that he needed to go back to Phnom Penh for the repair. It made for a crazy week, having to drop everything else to go and making last-minute travel arrangements, but everything went well for him and he is now happily back home, though drastically more anemic, despite his several blood transfusions. (I am very happy to be blood type O, so I can donate to anyone who needs it.) We returned to Phnom Penh again last week, as scheduled, to return the other child for her second surgery. Things went as expected, and I was able to observe interesting surgeries and help out at the hospital a bit. If all goes as planned in the next few months, we won't need to go back to Phnom Penh again for a long time, and while I grew to enjoy the city more over time, I won't miss it.
• In the middle of all this running back and forth, Marissa came to visit from Portland. Her trip was planned very suddenly - she booked on a Sunday and left that Wednesday - and she stayed about two weeks. I think the lesson we took from her trip was that as much as we love Cambodia, we cannot assume that everyone will. We promise not to try to convince anyone else to come who isn't already chomping at the bit to buy a ticket. 
• And speaking of visits, the next month or so promises to be full of people returning to visit Siem Reap. Our friend Richard from London, who was my co-worker and our housemate for a few months last year is arriving later today. (Richard is here, and we are as thrilled as ever to have him.) Other friends and acquaintances are returning, among them our friends Mark and Nora, who were here for a few months and now live in Canada and Korea, who are coming on Christmas Eve for a week. My friend Karen, a Cambodia veteran whose company I enjoyed so thoroughly back in July will be back here in time to ring in the new year with us. And to top it all off, my dearest friend Miriam is coming to visit in early January. (Miriam came here with us in 2009, so she knows what she's getting into.) My hope is to work less and play more over the next few weeks and enjoy time with all these amazing and amusing people.
• Soon after the floods receded for good in Siem Reap, there was a huge fire just a couple of blocks from our house. There is an area along the river where people have built dozens of stilted houses perched over the water, living in the back and running small businesses in the front. They are all there illegally, and the government has been trying to move them out for a while, so when they started to go up in flames one night, there were lots of theories about how the fire may have started. As far as I know, there was no foul play and no one was hurt, but those people lost every single thing they owned and nothing was left of their houses but the charred remains of stilts reaching up out of the river. In a show of typical Cambodian resilience, people began rebuilding the very next day, and within a week, you could hardly tell what had happened there except for one spot where a charred pile of wood remained. One of the scary things about the fire was how well it illustrated the lack of emergency services here. There is no central fire department, and no 911 to call in case of emergency. When the fire started, people were posting on the Siem Reap Ex-Pat Facebook page asking how to call a fire department. When one department was called, they demanded $400 before they would even show up. Luckily, there is a very posh hotel quite close the fire and that place has its own fire truck, so they were quickly on the scene. It's amazing that even more houses didn't burn down, considering they're essentially made of dry kindling materials (bamboo, wood scraps, and thatch, for the most part) and packed in tightly together. I still don't know how to call a fire department, but our house is concrete and tile and there isn't much in it that could burn, so I don't worry too much.  
• Speaking of emergencies and lack of services, there was another scary example of that sandwiched in between my last two trips to Phnom Penh. An American guy who had arrived in town about ten days earlier went missing one night when he was supposed to be riding a motorbike between Siem Reap town and an area about 25 minutes away. The guy he had been staying with (but had only known for a few days), Joel, started calling and looking around town for him. About 36 hours after his disappearance, he was found at the local government hospital, with an obviously serious head injury that they were completely unqualified to treat. He was found lying there with a IV of tylenol, barely able to be roused and unable to tell you his name or even what country he was in. I ended up spending several hours that day trying to help Joel figure out what should be done with him. The International Hospital was the obvious choice, except for the fact that all they would want to do would be to airlift him to Bangkok (at the cost of $10,000 or so), and we were pretty sure this guy had no insurance and probably not much money. We got him out of the government hospital as fast as we could, taking him to a private clinic for a rudimentary CT scan, and I started calling every doctor I know in town who might be able to offer advice, while Joel got busy calling the embassy. Many, many calls later, having cashed in a lot of favors and asking for help from a variety of sources, we arranged to take him to a hospital in Phnom Penh that most people agreed would be the best choice. The clinic that did the CT scan wanted us to pay $400 to hire an "ambulance" to take him there, but since an ambulance here has no equipment, no medicine, and no trained staff, we just hired a van to make the drive. Joel dropped everything he had going on here in town at his business and went along to Phnom Penh. When Joel came back to Siem Reap a few days later, I was getting ready to go to Phnom Penh for my next work trip, so I visited daily and brought food. (Hospitals here don't feed you, or do much else, for that matter.) While we were genuinely afraid for this guy's life in the beginning, he is recovering slowly but surely and is now back in Siem Reap. The interesting thing has been watching his brain function start to return, and without having known him at all before his accident, I have no idea whether the personality traits that are most obvious are pre-existing or still a function of his brain injury. I suppose time will tell. He is, without a doubt, an interesting guy. The lesson in all of this is that travel medical insurance is a good idea and no one should come here without it. (Don't worry; we have it.
• Probably the biggest news of the month is Jaz and Sovann's plan to leave Cambodia and go to Vermont. After an expensive eight-month process of applying for visas and filling out forms and collecting appropriate documents, Sovann was approved in early December for a visa. For those who don't know (as I didn't know just a few years ago), the US is very reluctant to grant even tourist visas to brown-skinned people from poor countries. Most Cambodians we know who have ever tried to get a tourist visa have been declined, even after paying exorbitant fees for the privilege of applying. Knowing all of this, Jaz and Sovann went another route and applied for a fiance visa, which means that for him to be able to stay in the US, they will need to get married within three months of arrival. While that's certainly not what we would have chosen for them to do if given any alternative, Jaz has always marched to the beat of her own drummer and found a way around the limitations that the world tries to place upon her, and this is yet another example. So off they go in February - February in Vermont! Poor Sovann. Despite countless conversations to prepare him for this weather shock (let alone culture shock) I can't imagine that he can really conjure up a clear picture of what he's in for. But an American visa is still the dream of many around the world, and this is his shot at it. Family and friends back home have been supportive and welcoming, and they have a place to stay (with my very generous aunt, Sara.) Jaz will transfer to UVM in time for summer semester, and Skyler is working on finding Sovann restaurant work as soon as he can get his green card and is legal to work. While he waits for that legal work status, I'm hoping someone will teach him how to use a snow shovel and a dishwasher so he can make himself useful around Sara's house. (He certainly can cook - he made an excellent French onion soup last night!) To those back home, I ask you to please make him feel welcome and buy him some long underwear and some rice...
• That will leave Steve and me here all on our own for the first time, which means we're starting to plan our next trip home, probably in June. It will be strange to be here without Jaz, and without Sovann - they've both been a huge part of our lives here. In preparation, I'm starting to learn how to deal with some of the details of everyday life that Sovann has always taken care of for us - how to buy the giant bottles of water and transport it home on my motorbike, how to call the gas company to bring over a new tank when ours runs out, etc. We'll figure all that stuff out, I'm sure, but we will miss them terribly.
• We miss everyone at home, some days more than others. People often ask us, "How long will you stay in Cambodia?" We get the question from local people here and also from family and friends at home, and it's odd not to have a definitive answer. When we first hatched the plan to come to Cambodia, we planned to stay "a year, maybe longer." That quickly morphed into "a year or two, maybe longer." Now I answer by saying, "We'll stay as long as it works for us, and when there's a reason to go home, we will." But what will the reason be? When we run out of money? When our kids start having kids and we can't bear to be so far away? When the everyday annoyances and frustrations of life here overwhelm the sense of privilege of being here? When we no longer feel we have something to offer and contribute here? I think that having at least one of our kids around has been a part of the equation of what works about being here, even if we missed the other three so much. When they're all half a world away, then what? Living abroad (and maybe particularly in a developing country) requires asking questions of oneself about motivation and priorities and purpose on a regular basis. There are so many things about living here that are delightful and interesting and affordable and satisfying, and there are also so many day-to-day challenges and frustrations and unmet longings for familiar friend and family and food. I try to remember that quote I love so much, and just try to live the questions and wait for the answers to reveal themselves in due time. (And what the hell would we do if we went home? I'm pretty sure I would have to give up afternoon naps and get a real job...)
• I know there was much more than this that I wanted to say when I started writing this entry a week ago, but if I wait until I remember it all, I'll never post anything. That probably wouldn't be such a terrible thing, except that occasionally I get reminders from people that they're awaiting the next blog entry, and I hate to disappoint. I still have multiple half-finished blog entries and random scraps of paper with prompts for things I intend to write about - everything from exorcisms to Khmer body-building extravaganzas - and maybe someday I'll get to those. Or maybe (if you're just dying for an excuse to buy a plane ticket) you should just come over here and hear about them in person. We could show you a good time. :)

     Thank you for slogging through this disjointed stream-of-consciousness I just wrote. I hope to do a better job of keeping up with these updates in the coming months. As I say every day, there is never a dull moment here...and I am hardly up to the challenge of documenting them all.

(And I know, photos are long overdue. I'll get to it, I promise.)