One week. I’ve been back one week, and it already feels like I never left. Oddly enough, that’s the same feeling I had when I stepped off the plane in Los Angeles. Perhaps, for all my moaning and crying, I am settling in here. I’m going to take that as a good sign.
Despite the familiarity of the week, I’ve been noticing some things about Phnom Penh. My senses have been in overdrive, I think, absorbing all the differences, feeling out the place I’m going to be for awhile. I never took the time before, to consider what God means when he says we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” It’s not just that we have great, functioning bodies and incredible intellect, it’s that we can soak up an environment, figure out what a place feels like, and come to know it that way. Put simply, I’ve been grateful this week for my five senses.
It started off when I came back to my apartment. In the past, it’s had this semi-strange smell, and it kind of annoyed me. It was a really stale smell, almost a mildew scent (which I have tried desperately to remove). When I walked in the door last Thursday, though, something had changed. I can’t put my finger on it, but it was a familiar scent, one that I recognized as the way that Cambodia smelled to me the very first time I came here, in 2006. A dusty, wood-fire scent, but tinged with something else I can’t name. I smelled it walking down the street, and driving to work, too. I’ve had other olfactory reminders. About 3 months ago, I was driving down the Russian Blvd. and was overwhelmed with the scent of the magnolia trees that line the road. It immediately made me think of driving down Oak Knoll Dr. in Pasadena, though I have no idea if there are magnolia trees there. In that moment, I nearly closed my eyes and with the feeling of being back in the US (of course, I was driving, so I couldn’t actually close my eyes).
My other senses have been touched by this place, too. For months, the humidity was just about a felt object here, the air so sticky with moisture that I could feel it settle on my skin. I’ve been able to touch the heat rising off of cars, motorbikes and people as we bake in the sun at an intersection. In those moments, the air is almost oppressive; it is a solid mass to push through so I can breathe.
I’m learning to taste the traces of coconut and curry spices in Cambodian foods. I’ve been a little sick this week, and my sore throat is burned by the acrid diesel fuels that are kicked up by big trucks rolling through. On the road, the dust makes me cough, it’s so thick.
My ears are learning to pick up words in a different language, but also other sounds. I’ve been awakened every morning to a saw slicing steel (my neighbors are doing some construction), and I fall asleep to dogs barking and cats shrieking. Just tonight, driving home, I heard a cell phone ringing to the tune of Jingle Bells, and laughed out loud. And on Wednesday, I saw the strangest thing just four blocks from my apartment—a herd (not just one, but a whole herd) of goats, running through the street.
So while my brain processes the strangeness of these different things, it’s also getting used to them. Just as I’ve learned to breathe through my mouth as I drive past a garbage pile or turn up the music to block out the dogs, I’ll get used to all these strange sensations. These are the things that I failed to notice in the US—the scent of my parent’s house, the feel of the California sunshine. I’ll take these things for granted, if I’m not careful, and someday, I’ll be somewhere else, smell something strange, and remember Cambodia.
Despite the familiarity of the week, I’ve been noticing some things about Phnom Penh. My senses have been in overdrive, I think, absorbing all the differences, feeling out the place I’m going to be for awhile. I never took the time before, to consider what God means when he says we are “fearfully and wonderfully made.” It’s not just that we have great, functioning bodies and incredible intellect, it’s that we can soak up an environment, figure out what a place feels like, and come to know it that way. Put simply, I’ve been grateful this week for my five senses.
It started off when I came back to my apartment. In the past, it’s had this semi-strange smell, and it kind of annoyed me. It was a really stale smell, almost a mildew scent (which I have tried desperately to remove). When I walked in the door last Thursday, though, something had changed. I can’t put my finger on it, but it was a familiar scent, one that I recognized as the way that Cambodia smelled to me the very first time I came here, in 2006. A dusty, wood-fire scent, but tinged with something else I can’t name. I smelled it walking down the street, and driving to work, too. I’ve had other olfactory reminders. About 3 months ago, I was driving down the Russian Blvd. and was overwhelmed with the scent of the magnolia trees that line the road. It immediately made me think of driving down Oak Knoll Dr. in Pasadena, though I have no idea if there are magnolia trees there. In that moment, I nearly closed my eyes and with the feeling of being back in the US (of course, I was driving, so I couldn’t actually close my eyes).
My other senses have been touched by this place, too. For months, the humidity was just about a felt object here, the air so sticky with moisture that I could feel it settle on my skin. I’ve been able to touch the heat rising off of cars, motorbikes and people as we bake in the sun at an intersection. In those moments, the air is almost oppressive; it is a solid mass to push through so I can breathe.
I’m learning to taste the traces of coconut and curry spices in Cambodian foods. I’ve been a little sick this week, and my sore throat is burned by the acrid diesel fuels that are kicked up by big trucks rolling through. On the road, the dust makes me cough, it’s so thick.
My ears are learning to pick up words in a different language, but also other sounds. I’ve been awakened every morning to a saw slicing steel (my neighbors are doing some construction), and I fall asleep to dogs barking and cats shrieking. Just tonight, driving home, I heard a cell phone ringing to the tune of Jingle Bells, and laughed out loud. And on Wednesday, I saw the strangest thing just four blocks from my apartment—a herd (not just one, but a whole herd) of goats, running through the street.
So while my brain processes the strangeness of these different things, it’s also getting used to them. Just as I’ve learned to breathe through my mouth as I drive past a garbage pile or turn up the music to block out the dogs, I’ll get used to all these strange sensations. These are the things that I failed to notice in the US—the scent of my parent’s house, the feel of the California sunshine. I’ll take these things for granted, if I’m not careful, and someday, I’ll be somewhere else, smell something strange, and remember Cambodia.
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