In flux

Sometimes life changes quickly.

After deciding to split up with Nika a few weeks ago, I have now decided to leave Phnom Penh. After visiting the Cambodian province of Mondulkiri three times I’ve decided that’s where I want to spend the next few years.
The original plan was to teach one more term in Phnom Penh, tie things up with Nika when she visits in August, and then arrange a move to Sen Monorom, capital of Mondulkiri.
But today, on the first day of the new term, I found that the school had decided to cut my teaching load from 5 classes a day to 3. Reason? A student survey showed some students don’t like my “strict but fair” approach. The outcome of this survey is used to evaluate teachers’ performance and the teaching load they get. But what the survey, taken six weeks into a term, doesn’t show is how the students feel at the end of the term (which is what counts): many of them who at first dislike my strict methods come to realize how much they learned. (I’m not the first teacher in Cambodia to lose hours or jobs because too much power is given to students. But I understand where it comes from. Schools are businesses, and students (and their parents) the customers, and a business cannot survive with unhappy customers…) I decided to resign there and then. And arrange my move to Mondulkiri as quickly as possible.
Also, my Phnom Penh apartment has become nearly unlivable: a nearby construction site covers the whole neighborhood in fine dust (plaster, cement, etc.). After just a few days my apartment is covered in dust, and my nose is stuffy all the time. Not healthy at all.
I have by now seen most of Phnom Penh, and the increasing pollution, traffic and people’s utter disregard for other people, the environment, heritage, etc. is getting to me.
Finally, after three years in Phnom Penh I still can’t properly speak or read Khmer. And I simply cannot find the motivation here to study and practice more. I hope that a simpler lifestyle, with more free time, and closer to the locals will help me improve my Khmer language skills.

I’ll have to find a house to rent, arrange a truck to move some furniture, and then figure out the best way to have an income. There are no foreign-run English schools in Mondulkiri, so teaching at a school is out of the question. I might become a private tutor, set up a small school, or find employment with an NGO. I’m not too worried though; I have saved some money that can keep me going for quite a long time. Besides hiking, biking, swimming and fishing, there really isn’t much to do in Mondulkiri: Sen Monorom is a market/transport/provincial government town, with only a handful of small restaurants and guesthouses, an Internet cafe, and a market. So there aren’t too many opportunities to spend lots of money.
Luckily I have made a few friends in Mondulkiri, who can help me getting settled in.

We’ll see what the future brings…