I'm still having trouble getting all the photos to load, but thought I'd post anyway.
Perhaps I'll add others at another time.
As our house was being prepared for us to move in, we were making lists again: What do we need for the house? What do we need to stock the kitchen? We began to gather things, though our stamina for shopping was limited, depending on where we went.
Lori showed us a great restaurant and guest house supply shop just down the street. We would have never known it was even there, as the sign is small enough to miss and doesn't identify the type of business. In a space of maybe 400 square feet, it has displays of dishes (all white china), flatware, wine glasses, good quality pots and pans and other cookware (one brand), and a display of sheets, pillows, towels (one choice of each, all white) and hotel-sized toiletries. As far as I'm concerned, it is the Khmer equivalent of Bed Bath & Beyond. After comparing the quality and prices to what is available at the market, we decided to spend a little extra to get some decent sheets and cookware. To give you an idea of the options available here, the local market had fitted and flat sheets for $7 and $8 respectively, which I would guess were 75-thread-count, cotton/polyester blend. For $10 each, we bought sheets that will probably be infinitely smoother and more comfortable. We could buy lightweight aluminum cookware at $8-12 each, but we chose to buy heavy-weight, high quality cookware at $15-30 per piece for a skillet, saucepan and large pot. Throw in three pillows, a duvet and duvet cover and a nice little paring knife, and we dropped some serious cash at Khmer BB&B, but we felt the added expense was worth it for things that will get daily use. I suspect we will return at some point when we realize what else we need that can't be found elsewhere.
From there we headed to the local market for more pedestrian offerings. We need everything from a broom and dustpan to trash cans and a toilet brush. Shopping at the market is such an intense experience; we realized that we had the stamina to buy maybe two or three things before we needed to come back to the guest house for a beer or a nap. Throughout the markets (there are several) there are multiple stalls that all carry an almost identical selection of plasticware, brooms/brushes/mops, cheap dishes and flatware, thin towels and bags of detergent, make-up, hardware, mosquito nets, and almost everything you can imagine, as well as many things you can’t. Nothing is marked, every price is negotiable, and there is no such thing as casual browsing. As soon as you slow down in front of anyone's stall, they are ready to pounce and offer whatever you may need (and whatever you don't.) All the things for sale are piled on top of each other, next to each other, hanging from the ceiling and walls, balanced in layer upon precariously balanced layer. Besides being visually overstimulating, the market is hot and noisy and filled with smells of all kinds, many not so pleasant. So shopping is a bit overwhelming, overstimulating, and overtiring, but certainly an adventure.
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| Even with help from our tuktuk driver friend Chamnan, the market overwhelms us quickly. |
After two days of intermittent shopping, broken up by eating and drinking and sitting on the floor of the guest house lobby helping the family and volunteers put together packets of school supplies for PLF-sponsored children, our landlord called on Thursday morning to announce that the house was ready a couple of days earlier than expected. Would we like to come sign the contract and move in? Why, yes, we would!
The lease is a carefully typed two-page document, and though we had provided the landlord, Hy Rattana (aka “Pouw”) both of our names, he was really only interested in Steve’s signature. In charming English, the details of the lease were spelled out. My favorite item is number 11:
“Party B (that's us) must agree to Party A (Pouw) or their family want to control the house follow the requisition. Party B must take care the house in good tidy and doesn’t do anything mistake to neighbor accident or nervous.”
I suppose this means that if you don’t hear from us for long periods it’s either because we’re too busy taking care the house in good tidy or we’ve made mistake to neighbors accident or nervous and have been evicted.
I suppose you’d like to hear more about the house than just the details of the lease…
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| The view from our balcony out the front gate |
Rental houses here tend to come in two styles: wooden and concrete. The two-story wooden houses can be charming to look at from the outside, but having looked at many, we found them very dark inside. They tended to have odd layouts, very steep stairs, and rustic kitchens - and no kitchen at all in one case! We have rented a concrete house – a duplex. The landlord and his family live on the ground floor, and we rent the second floor. The house is relatively new, having been built about 6 years ago. The interior living space has almost exactly the same square footage as our house – just over 1000 square feet, but the front terrace is really living space as well and adds another 360 square feet. (It's easy to figure the size as all the floors are tiles that measure almost exactly 18 inches.) The floors are white, all the rooms are freshly painted a bright peachy/yellow, and the living room also has wooden wainscoting, which adds some warmth and contrast. The terrace overlooks the family’s yard, which has several large mango and jackfruit and other fruit trees, some scrubby grass, an arbor sort of structure with viney squash plants growing on it, and (unfortunately) a bit of garbage scattered about: an old computer keyboard, general flotsam and jetsam and some empty water bottles are lying here and there. I’m hoping that now that they have a tenant to pay for trash removal, they’ll join in the fun and put out their trash for pick-up, but perhaps not. Khmer people have an odd oblivion to trash, even when the rest of their house or yard is well-kept. In fact, grandma is out there sweeping the leaves and debris off the driveway as I write this.
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| Home Sweet Home |
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| Grandma does her thing |
We’ve got three bedrooms, each about 15 feet square and each with their own bathroom. The bathrooms are very basic by American standards, but very comfortable by Khmer standards. We have a real flush toilet, a small sink, and a shower with hot water. The “shower” is typically Asian – there is a showerhead on the wall, but no shower stall or curtain. The water just sprays the room, which means you have to keep your towel out of way (which can be inconvenient) but on the other hand, you’re cleaning the bathroom every time you shower (which is very convenient!)
The kitchen is even bigger than the bedrooms, and again very basic by our American standards, but perfectly serviceable. We have a two-burner gas cooktop, a small sink (with cold water only), and the best refrigerator I’ve ever seen in a Khmer house! It freezes ice cubes faster than I would have thought possible, so we have a seemingly endless supply of ice for drinks. The fridge was filthy when we got here, but cleaned up more easily than expected, and looked like new when Steve was finished scrubbing it.
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| The kitchen, a work in progress |
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| This cleaned up very nicely - and it works great. |
I have to give Steve some well-deserved credit here. He has been a cleaning machine since we got here on Thursday afternoon. The house looked pretty clean at first glance, but actually had a pretty solid layer of dust and grime, particularly in the bathrooms and kitchen. One of our first shopping trips after signing the lease was to Angkor Market, where we bought some cleaning supplies. Shopping for this sort of thing is interesting – the Angkor Market is a real supermarket and has a huge supply and variety. About 20% of the cleaning supplies are quite cheap, while the rest are very expensive. We could buy cheap little rolls of paper towels at 2 for .80 cents, or an enormous lush Kirkland brand roll for $3.20. We could choose Australian-made, not-tested-on-animals, environmentally-friendly spray kitchen cleaner for $4.70 or “Mr. Muscle” for $1.20. We went the cheap route, and it turns out that Mr Muscle lives up to his name. In fact, we’re already on our second bottle, as Steve loves this stuff. And dish detergent – why does a small bottle of Sunlight cost .65 cents, but a slightly larger bottle of Palmolive costs $3.40??? I’ll never know, but Sunlight it is.
So as Steve scrubbed and cleaned, I began the job of unpacking our many bags. Besides the bags we brought, I had left a couple of bags here last time around. These contained mostly school and medical supplies, but also some clothes, toiletries, and household items. I had also sent three boxes from home before we left. Opening the boxes and bags was kind of like Christmas morning, because I couldn’t remember what was in many of them. So far, I’ve been shocked to realize how many toothbrushes I brought – apparently I forgot how cheap they are here – and wondered why I didn’t bring more deodorant – that tends to be pricey. Otherwise, no huge disappointments or embarrassments about what we chose to bring. As time goes on though, our list of things we wish we had brought grows longer. Someday I’ll post the list just for your amusement – and anyone who comes to visit will be asked to bring something!
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| Can't wait to see what's in here! |
So the house feels big and bright and uncluttered, and we have lots of little things, but not much furniture - so no way to organize things very well. The house came with the beds, a table and four chairs on the balcony, two metal tables in the kitchen, two rattan shelf units, and a set of wooden living room furniture. There is almost no such thing here as a “couch” as we know them – though one rental apartment we looked at had a real American-style couch and Jaz has begged us to find such a thing. The living room furniture here is more typically carved wood – carved in the shape of a couch, but without any kind of cushion at all, so it really resembles a somewhat elaborate bench. Chairs are the same. I find they make good flat surfaces to put computers and books on, but I don’t think I’ve actually sat on them since we sat down to sign the lease.
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| Sorry - terrible photo. But it's a terrible "couch." |
For the moment, our clothes are stacked on the shelves and hung from any available hook-like object. We bought plastic laundry baskets, which provide a way to throw similar items together. We need more shelves, somewhere to hang clothes, and bedside tables. For now, the third bedroom provides a place to lay out all of our stuff while we decide what to do with it, just like our extra room functioned as our staging area at home while we’re packing to leave!
So far, every day we clean some more – the ceiling fans need cleaning, the walls need wiping, the windows desperately need washing – and make more small trips to the market. Our list for today includes going out to buy a toaster oven, an iron, and a clock. We hope to get internet hooked up within the week, though yesterday I picked up a free unsecured wifi signal from the terrace for a little while. (In the meantime, we can ride our bikes three minutes to the guest house and use the internet time we’ve already paid for there.) Steve is missing the US Open, which he was watching in our room at the guest house, so we’ll buy a little TV, I suppose. (That doesn’t feel like such a splurge, since cable is only $5 a month for 70+ channels.) Also on the list of things to do: figure out our laundry options, hang up our new hammock, and see about getting darker curtains made for Jaz’s room so she can sleep later in the morning on weekends without the sun in her face.
I hope no one finds it too tacky that I so often include the prices of things in these posts. Several people at home expressed interest in the costs of things here, and I’m doing some careful tracking for our own purposes. Also, it’s completely culturally appropriate to talk about prices here. On every trip, I’ve been asked how much my things cost: my camera, my alarm clock, my car at home, my shoes, etc. It’s the first question Khmer people ask us now when they hear we rented a house. “How much per month?” So we tell them, and we’ll tell you too. The rent is $300 per month. We’ll find out how much the water and electricity cost after we get our first bills. Trash removal is $10/month, cable is $5, internet will be about $25. Food costs can vary widely, depending on how much we eat in vs eat out. I plan to keep track of our grocery costs, so I’ll report back on that sometime.
Other details: I think the weather here has been more pleasant than in Vermont over the last few days. I read that Burlington broke a record with 92 degrees this week; I haven’t seen it higher than 87 here. It seems to be about 78-80 degrees when I first wake up, and rises to 84-87 by afternoon. The humidity is about 75%, and it rains once most days, anything from a short-lived sprinkle to a full-on downpour for a half hour or so. Our road isn’t paved, and has potholes that would make Vermont’s worst mud-season road quake in its boots, so navigating the bikes through and around the puddles is yet another adventure. Last evening, I was concentrating so hard on avoiding the minefield of puddles that I rode right past our house. My first clue that I had gone too far was the herd of goats that blocked my path; I was sure I hadn’t seen them before, and I was right.
More about the neighborhood another time…And more photos when Picasa and Google are feeling more compatible.
