The War of the Heart and the Mind

The War of the Heart and the Mind

Less than three weeks ago I found myself in an unknown city, surrounded by people who do not look or speak like me. I jumped in the car of a stranger who drove me to a hotel somewhere not far from the river and very close to the Royal Palace. I stayed in a hotel room that did not look like my home, where the only things familiar to me were my luggage and a few toiletries I reluctantly took out of the suitcase. Doubts and fear assaulted me relentlessly. Why did I leave all I knew to be in this place? What was I doing, for real?

The ability of adaptation is a prodigious one. Today, I feel as surrounded by love as I have not in a long time.

Back to School

During the first two weeks of my new life in South East Asia I stayed in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital. After a relatively uneventful first weekend (except for having lunch with Katie Wandtke, who is in town on a business trip), I started the TESOL certification classes on July 9^th. My classmates were all American except for a cute young man from the Philippines called Fred. Out of the twenty two, most were in their twenties, although there were a couple of people passed their mid-sixties, a woman of forty, and a guy the same age as me. Fred and I were the only ones who did not stay in the hotel offered by LanguageCorps. I was in the guesthouse around the corner from school and Fred at a friend’s home. Everyone seemed very friendly since the first day, although I did not do that many things with them because their hotel was pretty far from Pannasastra, the university where we took our classes. However, we had lunch in small groups every day and I really enjoyed that. The classes consisted in practicing how to teach English to people who do not have a clue what you are talking about and in reviewing grammar and phonetics. Our teachers, Rick, Nick, Steve and Indy were wonderful and patience. Even though it was work, classes were very enjoyable.