In between Plowing Fields and Free Wi-Fi

So I WAS going to write something deep and profound about how in Cambodia …. In Cambodia luxury and poverty constantly hit you and there’s no way of avoiding it.  You can be browsing through the color-coordinated clothing rooms in a beautiful French villa design boutique one evening and the next be on the HASH  (international runners club found in major cities around the world) running through muddied fields lined with garbage.  You can be eating a Caesar salad and drinking iced coffee for lunch in one of the many Expat isle cafes in Phnom Penh or eating glass-noodles outside a market for dinner.  BUT I’ve lost my train of thought on the subject as Beyonce plays on loop at Café 33. 

I’ll just report that today it was decided during the Royal Plowing Ceremony that it would be a good year for rice.  Don’t ask me how that was decided.  I was too short to actually see what was going in the field next to the royal palace this morning.  Apparently the King showed up for the occasion.  It’s also the King’s 56^th Birthday this week, hence why Cambodians are on another national holiday yet again, hence why everyone in the non-profit world I seem to want to meet has been out of town the last two months.  Makes job-searching exceptionally difficult, but makes finding traveling time and travel companions exceptionally easy.

So there you go. As a foreigner attempting to build a life in Cambodia, the economic extremes are a constant reminder that you belong to a transient world beset with economic gaps.  Plowing fields, free Wi-Fi. What a weird in-between place to be. At least I now know how to line up the Cambodian Riel and US Dollars in my wallet so the numbers are easy to read.  Like I said, it’s all about balance and calculation, especially when I’m trying to balance on a bike between a Lexus and a Tuk-Tuk, trying to calculate if the Moto in front of me is about to screech to a halt.