Soon I will be departing for the lawless urban landscape of Phnom Penh. Cambodia has become a distant home to me. At times I even convince myself that I am a hybrid born from a Cambodian womb. The product of Big Daddy from the Food Network and a Khmer Princess.

Each day I spend varying amounts of time practicing my Khmer. The language of my adopted peoples. It is a challenge. The characters are curvaceous and mischievous. My pen never quite grabs the shape. Each day I spend on my lessons is another day of closness with this wild misadventure. We'll be spending no less than 3 years in Cambodia. A time which seems abstract and at times a concrete monolith.

I haven't found work. Although I have interviews which seem promising. I can purchase a work visa at a reasonable price which alleviates the obstacles of obtaining one through conventional means. I hope to work with children. Cambodia's people have suffered through years of unspeakable trauma - the shadows still lingering in the daily monotony. But the children are remarkable. They are all together a mass of giggles and tenderness. Troublesome and broken. The damages of the poverty ridden country wear on the vague traces of weary skin stretched beneath glowing eyes. I need more children in my life. For $250 I've been told that I can purchase one.

Phnom Penh is a chaotic symphony of cars and birds and motos. The palaces drape the city in an unearthly mystique. Monks in orange robes float away and into the invisible places only monks may enter. I am overwhelmed with excitement and curiosity. I can hear it all now. The birds and the markets and the towering heat all calling me.