Home.

So recently I have found myself saying to friends that Battambang feels like my home now. It’s a slightly funny thing to say, as I know I can’t stay here forever, I know that I will run out of money and outlive any usefulness I might have at the hospital. I will have to go home and work and train more at some point if  I want to become a more capable and useful nurse, and to see all the friends and family whose lives are flowing along in a parallel vein somewhere.

But for now it is true, I try to put a date on my departure but it just dosen’t feel right. I love Battambang, I love it’s dusty streets, its slow meandering river, which seems almost to flow as lazily as I feel myself being with the dry season heat. I love the animals that wander the streets, fields and my house, and I love my hang outs, my friends, the hospital and the fond and hilarious memories that I now have attached to so many places here.

I love riding my bike by the river on the weekend, going to Kinyei and always meeting someone I know, talking shit with my friends, having each over for BYO cutlery dinners, making grand plans about our future adventures together, having weekend moto trips and inventing things to do with the hot dusty afternoons.

I like my slowly increasing level of Khmer, the slowly revealed secrets to what people are saying and what is is going on around me, my increasing ability to make jokes and be friendly and playful with my words.

I like my increased ability to talk to the nurses and patients and to be a more involved part of the ICU, to be able to follow more of what’s going on and add suggestions and systems to try to increase the standard of nursing care and of nursing management skills.

When I think of leaving Battambang it dosen’t feel like going home, it feels like the daunting process of creating a new life somewhere else, without the river, the familiar resteraunts, roads, meandering cow’s, happy looking skinny dogs and baby chickens following hens around, without these friends, and khmer culture and language, and khmer being spoken, and without the aim of working together to give patients the best care we can manage with the resources we have.

I know I will leave, and create a new life, and that I will find a new home and friends and purpose, and a love for that place too, but for now, Battambang is my home and I love it.