The ants go marching one by one, hurrah...

I developed an affection for the house geckos, once I got used to the shadows they made as they skittered around the walls of my room at night. I learned quickly to watch for snakes when traipsing through the higher grasses in flimsy flip-flops. I use the stray dogs as a (totally legitimate) justification for not going running. I skirt the cows in the road on my bicycle, and I even spare the big beetles by gently plucking them off my pillow and letting them scurry out the window. Though I won't ever pretend to be hardcore, my threshold for squeamishness is rising considerably.--I learn to deal with it. But oh, oh!, the ants.

If it were just an ant game of tag on my floor, or a few playing connect the freckles on my arm, I wouldn't mind. But where there's one, there are six hundred. It was my fault when they found their way into the foil-wrapped energy bars. And when I found them coating my rain jacket, that was on me too--I'd left a candy wrapper in the pocket. The next morning, I sleepily dumped some vitamins into my palm and realized the fish oil tablets were moving; the ants had found their way through the child-proof top. I stashed anything that had ever been exposed to any possible derivative of a food product in my fridge. When I got back to the hotel, the flash mob was newly congregated on the ankles of a pair of pants; I blame it on the organic cotton. I quickly overcame nobler impulses and got more liberal with the aerosol can of carcinogens. Oh, but the ants are smarter. As I slept, they seized my laptop, pouncing on the stale crumbs between the keys, testament to many desperate paper all-nighters. As I typed at a cafe the next day, little red bodies crawled out from underneath the keys. Apparently, I'd interrupted lunch at the new hot spot, QWERTY. A waiter walked by, did a double-take, and walked back. He pointed to the ant-covered plate next to me, and was about to apologize when he broke into laughter, waving over all his waiter friends: these ants were crawling out of the CD drive, blazing a trail right to my melted chocolate chips. They were in the fan, in the USB port, in the battery. They didn't just want that old sprinkle; they wanted everything. Short of killing my computer with poison, I was at a loss: my limited Lao lets me say 'turn right', íce cream' and 'not too spicy'; 'can you fumigate my laptop?' is a little out of my league. I hopped the nearest tuk-tuk to the office, and dumped the computer on the IT desk, wildly miming the motions of dismantling the laptop and sweeping out the ants. The shy IT manager smiled calmly and said blushingly in Lao--to a colleague who whispered the translation later--that the ants must have come because I was so sweet.


And speaking of pests...
I am back in Phnom Penh, happily absorbing more of the city than I got a chance to see last visit. I've been indulging in tuk-tuks to get to work--here, they are small chariots, strangely ornate and a lovely way to zip around. Yesterday morning, rattling by the Royal Palace, I was thinking just that as I reached into my bag to grab my sunglasses when--poof!--in the space of a blink, two boys whizzed by in a moto, reached in and yanked my bag right out of my arms. I shrieked and pointed, but no one else seemed particularly surprised or interested in giving chase. I've been warned about the drive-by snatchings, but still it was the brashness of it that took me aback--in the middle of the day, in slow-moving traffic, right out of my lap.

So at the moment, I am a bit of a floater: living on borrowed cash, phoneless, and without any form of identification. In an unnerving way, it's strangely liberating...there's nothing left to lose. At the same time, I hate my sudden suspiciousness, especially in this place where so many people are so warm. I walk now with my backpack on my front, arms wrapped around it like a pregnant belly, eyes darting around. But even in my guardedness, people are open. My tuk-tuk driver was so upset that he he told the others outside the hotel, so they've now formed a small posse that watches out for me. Instead of walking out to "Killing Fields, lady?", it's "you take care today, madam."

*

It's more than just that, but for reasons I can't yet identify--and in the face of the theft of roughly 2/3 of my worldly possessions--I am startled to find myself close to loving it here.