Weirdness

"We are all a little weird, and life's a little weird, and when you find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love."         -Dr. Seuss

I'm so glad that I got to spend this incredible year with Cynthia.  Just think.  I could have been stuck with someone like Tom.  Oh, the horror!  Luckily, I ended up with someone who not only shares similar interests and beliefs about the world, but she's a total nut case like me.  Sure, there are some differences.  Cynthia is a slob, and her casual attire consists of a long shirt with no underwear.  I, on the other hand, am a neat-freak and prefer not to display my cooch to my friends.  I make fun of Cynthia.  She tells me to fuck off.  It's the perfect relationship. 

It takes a special kind of person to teach at an N.G.O. school for poor children while living in the middle of a bunch of rice paddies.  By special, I mean slightly insane.  We have endured epic flooding, biting cockroaches, poisonous centipedes, head lice outbreaks, food poisoning, Cambodian hospitals with inept doctors, lack of running water, day long power outages, 95 degree heat with 95% humidity, chanting monks at 4:20 am, and small students who pee or poop their pants during class.  But in the end, we just shrug and laugh. 

Yesterday, we decided to have lunch in Sisophon.  At this point, a 40 minute round trip drive just for onion rings seems perfectly reasonable.  In fact, a lot of things that used to seem strange or exotic are now just a part of my daily life.  They still give me a chuckle though.

Shopping at the market is always a culinary and potentially life threatening adventure.  That cabbage looks positively divine.  I'll take the one with the most flies on it.

Mmmmm...and I'll take a dozen of those eggs that have been fermenting in crap for 3 months.

Want some coconuts?  Excuse me while I grab my machete, climb the rickety ladder made of sticks, and hack a few off.

I'm not sure of the exact moment when I knew I was totally accepted by the Cambodians.  Perhaps it was when I slapped a bunch of talcum powder on some burly dude's face, drenched him with water, hurled pieces of ice, and he didn't kill me.