I'm moving!

Wednesday I move out of my host family's house into a place of my own. It's so exciting to have my own space and be able to cook for myself again. I have made some Khmer meals for my host family, but it's not quite the same.

My new house is just two blocks from my host family's house. I'm renting the top level of a traditional Cambodian house; I'm living in the wooden part and the landlady and her family are living below in the cement half. There is a wonderful balcony that's covered in foliage and is perfect for sitting outside on cool evenings. There is a large living room, two bedrooms, a western bathroom (no squat toliet!) and a kitchen type room in the back. And I'm praying the snakes will stay away since I'm on the second floor. So far, I've had two snakes in my bedroom during my homestay. :( But my landlady does have a pet monkey so we'll see how he is. Oh, and he's on a chain, so don't worry about him stealing stuff.

Lately I've been amazed at how my perspective is changing. The Groffs are giving me their old icebox since I will not have a fridge and I'm so excited to have cold water to drink and a place to keep leftovers and dairy. Going to the market each day to buy 500 reil block of ice doesn't seem so bad after not even having an icebox for 4 months. At home, I couldn't image living withough a fridge. Since I've been in PP the past couple of days for meetings (and a hymn sing tonight) I've been packing up extra kitchen essentials from old MCCers. I thought all the extra stuff had been claimed already, but nope, there was still great stuff here. Yesterday, I was estatic a rolling pin was in the pile. A rolling pin, can you believe it? And a beautiful teapot. I felt like a kid in the candy store with such goodies.

Despite my eagerness to move out into my own place, I'm saddened at the thought of leaving my host family. When I told them I was moving out, their immediate reaction was that something was wrong and they started quizzing me. Is it the food? Is it our family? Do Larry and Sherry think you should move? Well, I lead them to believe the CRs wanted me to leave. It's so hard to explain that Americans like living alone in apartments and not with a family when they are in their twenties and unmarried. In this communal culture, hardly anyone lives alone.

However, I was struck by the graciousness extended to me from my host family. Since I'm not moving into my new house until Wednesday, I'm staying an extra week with my host family. I told them I'd pay them for the extra time day by day until I leave. But my host father, Buntha, told me not to worry about the money; he has already told his wife not to take anymore from me. He said he's not worried about money; friendship is more important. Frankly, that shocked me. It made me think they truly have grown to love me despite my power/wealth as a white person. By no means is my host family in a financial bind, but it was so refreshing to hear those words come out of his mouth. And prehaps I'm starting to move past the superficial relationship that is so common here to a last friendship with them. At least I hope I'm heading in this direction.

I've been meeting with a young woman named Gunthia for the past several weeks to practice Khmer. I met her at church and she's an English teacher, though she doesn't like to speak it. Through our meetings a friendship has developed, which has been an answer to prayer; ;it's not quite so lonely in PV. However, sometimes these meetings are rather difficult. One day she told me she wanted to go to university, but her parents don't believe in educating women, so she went to teacher school. She's concerned for her parents because they are not Christians. Last week we had a discussion on skin color. She told the truth rather bluntly-the whiter you are the better job and higher salary you earn. It's hard for me to reply to these remarks sometimes because, frankly, I have everything she's wanted. How do I go about encouraging her and impowering her in my responses? I don't understand the inequality and unfairness here. I doubt I'll ever understand it, but I'm still struggling with this.

Thanks to those of you who sent me birthday cards. It's nice getting mail, but if you're spending 84 cents to mail a cards, you could at least write something inside aside from your name. Nothing is going to be too boring; I'm excited about a rolling pin and the rain showers we had last week for pete's sake.