Six Months Already

How the Hell did it get to be six months already ???

Half a year.


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Acclimatisation

One of the strangest things about being here now for six months I think must be the level of acclimatisation I seem to have achieved.

Walking down the street, things that made me stop and look six months ago now just pass me by as perfectly normal.

* Four Buddhist monks, orange silk robes flapping in the breeze, crowded onto the same 50cc motorbike.
* Five 12 year olds all piled on to the same 50cc motorbike swerving in and out of traffic the wrong way around a roundabout.
* Crossing a road by just walking into the traffic and trusting that people will drive around you
* Taking four hours to have a 30 minute job done
* Eating things that you would normally just stand on and throw out the window [cockroaches, locusts, water-beetles…]
* Eating rice and bacon for breakfast


Of course it has not all been so strange, I can pop round to the local ‘supermarket’ and buy toothpaste and loo roll, even Gordon’s gin and Red wine. But that has to be for special treats, it is far too expensive to shop there every week.


There have of course been some real highlights during the first six months.
Having friends here for a holidays being one of them.
Including time at the beach, visits to Angkor Wat and lots of shopping!

Also, my visits out to the provincial projects are usually both entertaining and interesting - oh and we do some work as well…

Taking language lessons - have mastered numbers! Which is actually one of the most important things to know here, all the roads and streets are numbered, plus haggling for your groceries at the local market………