Nathan

Some movies

Air con

After twelve days I said goodbye to the royal life I had. Goodbye to the life of living in a hotel and being served by the most helpful people ever. Goodbye to stand up with fresh baked eggs, bread and jam waiting on me. Goodbye to sleeping in a cooled chamber. Only the last part I didn’t knew then. 

After twelve days I moved to my own place. A house that was hard to find. My college and I saw several different houses before we found it. Houses you only see in nightmares or scary movies. Spiders as big as my hand in the corners, sound of bats coming from up floors and rats following my shadow ...  And this wasn’t the worse part of all. There was no furniture. My college’s spirit was sinking lower after every house we visited. I was trying to keep the heads up by seeing the challenge of it but at one point, when we heard the prices, we hit the bottom hard. We were lost. We were sitting on a bench in self compassion at the point to give it up. I don’t know how or why but then they came, The Cambodians. Willing to safe us. 

They dropped us on a tuktuk and showed us several good hidden houses. After every house we saw a new hope was rising. Till the moment we saw her, our new home. From the moment we stepped in the gigantic income hall we knew it. Whit a bouncing hart we asked the price. Afraid it would been broken again but it didn’t! When we heared the price we even made a little dance. It was the cheapest house we visited. It was our new house. I couldn’t believe how cheap it was. Till the first night of course. When I was in my bed, protected by my mosquito net and a cosy small blanked I realised it. There was no air con. Maybe you know how it is to sleep in 30°C, maybe not. I only can describe it as being steamed really slowly in your own sweat. After 8 hours I decided to quit the fight against the heat and stand up. Hoping it will get better. Hoping I would get used to sleep in the heat. After a while, I did.

Nathan          

Laziness

Don’t let you fouled! Despite of all the amazing touristic trips and visits I do I don’t forget why I’m here. Despite of all the adventures I experience, small or big, fun or hard, I don’t forget my purposes. Teaching. Working. Learning.  

Teaching to the students. Working for development. Learning for myself. And I do it seven on seven, twenty-four on twenty-four. Sometimes I teach. Mostly I work. Always I learn. 

So don’t let you fouled by the title. It’s just I’m too lazy to write today. Or yesterday. Or the days before  these days. Hopefully the desire to write comes back. Till that day I have a solution. Till that day I’ll agree that pictures say more than words. So I watched for hours to collect all my the best pictures and saved that on my computer. These are for home when I’m back. For now. For you. I just took some random pictures. Enjoy!

Nathan

Naked

Here I’m now. On the doorstep of my future. Ready to step in the warmth of a safe house. A house smelling like fresh baked cookies with a chair in de sun to read a good book. In the garden a swing for the kids. The possibility to take a hot shower when I’m cold. Comfortable clothes in the closet that can dress me perfectly for every indication. Clothes that can tell that you have been a good man. Clothes that can tell I have studied hard and worked for hours. But like I said, that’s the future. Now, in Cambodia, it’s just me. Naked.

Eyes are fixed on me. I can’t hide. Here, I haven’t my friends to protect me. Here I haven’t a place to shelter from the fuss the people make. Here I havevn’t certainties. And that sounds maybe a bit depressed to you, but it isn’t. It are opportunities.

If my friends were here I hadn’t met new people. If I had a shelter I hadn’t come out and handle the fuss. If I had certainness I would have cling to it and mist so many experiences. I wouldn’t have spoke too so much different people and heard dozen different stories. I wouldn’t have to go out with stranger and saw beautiful thinks like Wat Nonkon and the two mountains. I wouldn’t have to say yes to a football matche and misted a wonderful evening. I wouldn’t have said yes to go eating with strangers and had the best meal ever. And so I can go on for pages, but again I won’t. Not here. Not now. And actually I just want to say, for now, I don’t need the smell of cookies, the chair in the sun, the house, the hot shower, the swing, the clothes. I just love to be Naked!

Ten days

It’s now ten days. Ten long days ago I got on the plane for a big adventure. Ten long days of travelling, working and visiting places. Ten long days of sweat. And I Liked Every One Of Them!

But I must be honest. Not everything was fun, somethings were hard and sometimes I thought ‘what I’m doing here’ but that last one was only on the bus too Phnom Penh from the boarder were I got in the situation to be the stranger for the first time in my life. All the other problems we had were just small speed humps in the road to adventure. And maybe just maybe these humps were the biggest adventures of all. Like example the road too Kampong Cham was a hell of dust and wells. When the car needed a brake the battery just went on an early retirement. There we were. In the sun, on the hottest day of my life with only fried spiders to eat (a little bit exaggerated). It was a hard experience but it was wonderful to see how Cambodian after Cambodian toke his car to help the desperate foragers.

And there it was. I felt in love. Not in love with the country – because let’s be honest: it’s too warm, it’s dirty and it stinks a little – but at the people. It’s not correct to say that every Cambodian is friendly and generous but I’m still waiting to meet an opposite. Despite of all the beautiful temples and untouched nature it are the people who makes my day. I can write a thousand stories about Cambodians who helped us. Stories how we got an apartment, stories how we did the touristic visits with the help of locals, stories how I learned to drive the motorbike but I won’t. Not now. Maybe later.

Nathan