Electric City

Well, there is no Electric City. It's electricity. The stress is on the third syllable, silly.

There also was no electricity until 10 pm that night. When it returned, there was a shout of rejoicing and the wonderful sound of humming fans!

The next morning, I awoke to the nagging feeling that the taxi driver, whose name was Lam, was coming to take me on a tour. Although I strictly could not afford it, in the end, I decided that I had to go. But, I also decided to ask him to take me to schools instead of temples, which he did.

I couldn't help but notice that the young taxi driver had fiercely dark hair, somewhat like raven feathers and high, round cheek-bones. When he spoke, it sounded like he was under water.

We went to three schools and each one seemed unimpressed with the idea of a foreigner offering to work for them. They told me to send my CV by email to the school and wait for a call, etc. It seemed like a long, drawn-out process. So, I asked Lam if there was somewhere he wanted to take me. He suggested the Wat but then he mentioned it cost another $20 for the entrance fee! So, he asked, “Do you want to see the Killing Fields?”

Admittedly, it sounded a little more intriguing, history-wise and all that. So, we went.

It was an acre of land with buildings on it, one of which was a temple (of course) and in a show case, there were skulls stacked up on top of bones! In glass cases, there were old historical pictures and writing about the Khmer Rouge with guides alongside them, explaining things to their groups of tourists. 

Boring. I got back in the car.

“Let’s just go back,” I said.

“You wanna go to one more school?” Lam suggested.

“Ok.”

The next school was cute. They ushered me in and I was face-to-face with the Head Master. He seemed very pleased to see me, but hesitant about offering me the price because it was rather low. He hemmed and hawed a little and in the end he said that the director might agree to paying me $5 per hour. I self-righteously declared that I didn’t want to worship money and that it wasn’t the most important thing. Then, when the director offered me $8 for two hours per day, I upped him to $9. Ha. (Hypocrite that I am.) 

He rolled his eyes to the ceiling a bit and pretended to squirm, then agreed. (He just brought the price down one dollar! Sneaky. I guess they learn how to barter early on in life.)

“Can you start tomorrow?” was the next question.

“Sure.”
Worldbridge International School

 There are two separate buildings directly across the street from each other. This is the building that houses the computer lab and offices with more classrooms upstairs.

 This building houses classrooms and this is where my classroom was. (It's still there, but I'm not.)
(I kept photos in the original size because they get blurry when enlarged.)

Then I asked whether I could bring my luggage and put it at the school after I moved out of the guest house because I needed to look for a room nearby the school. They agreed to that.

Lam drove me back to the guest house. I paid him and thanked him for helping me to find a job. Then, I realized that, if I hadn’t taken that step of faith of paying him, I never would have gotten a job so soon. In fact, it was his idea to go to the last school when I was ready to give up.

When I got back to my room, I went online and discovered that I had a new online assignment from Elance and that they’d paid me up to date. Thank God! Now, I had a job and money!

It seemed that I was now on the other side of the knot-hole. I laughed at myself  that, after all the squeezing I'd been through, I was now just going to get puffed up back to normal. Somehow, I knew that I hadn’t yet passed all  the exams. There were more to come.

Nevertheless, I was ecstatic. The door to Cambodia was wedged open and my foot was solidly lodged inside. This was a great improvement on my former situation. I had figured that I had enough funds to last me three days! Then it was all over for me unless God did a miracle. 

But, of course, He did! In fact, He did chains of miracles.

That evening, I received a phone call from Mr. Kosal at the school, asking if I was coming in today with my luggage. I explained that I would come the next afternoon as I still had one more night at the guest house. 

A moment later, the phone rang again and this time it was Mr. Tayly. He asked me where I was. I said I was at the guest house and he said, “Good-bye.” I said, “Oh, you’re saying good-bye, now?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Ok. Good-bye.” And we hung up. Funny people.

That night, I fell asleep in the knowledge that God was in complete control. It was exciting to wait and see what else he had up His sleeve.