Hello from Phnom Penh!

Marc and I have been here a full day now and are pretty much on the right timezone -- not too hard for Marc since he came down from Beijing (only 1 hr difference), but surprisingly not too bad for me given the 11 hr difference! When I arrived on Saturday I basically took a shower and slept from noon- 9pm, got up, ate, waited for Marc to get in (around 12:30am!) and then somehow managed to sleep from 1-4am. We left early Sunday to head off to a focus group site about 45 min outside the capital. It was great to observe the ongoings of a research project in Cambodia, and it brought back memories of my field experience in China, and I"m sure of Marc's various experiences in Mozambique and India. Marc's Master student, Jenny who has been here 4 weeks now has done a great job setting things in motion, including hiring and training local enumerators and supervisors, making changes to the instrument, identifying villages and communities to conduct the focus groups, pilots and actual surveys. Our trip yesterday was for a second focus group session, and on Wed & Thursday or Thursday & Friday they will conduct the pilot survey. All of this is tough to do well in developed countries, but in a developing country with language barriers and limited resources and technology, everything take about 10 times longer to do.

After the sessions yesterday AM, together with the team, we went to a local "resort" restaurant by the Mekong River that the locals enjoy going to for lunch. We sat on mats by the river on these huts built on stilts and enjoyed a lovely Khmer meal together, which was wonderful. Later in the day, we went to the Russian Market to get a few things (SIM cards, fruit -- mangosteens, and a fresh coconut for each of us-- yum!). Otherwise, Marc and I spent most of the rest of the day back at our inn --- me struggling to stay awake reading, and Marc working away as usual. There are a few other folks here doing research with WaterSHED (the local NGO started by 2 UNC alums), which is about 2 block from the Inn. Besides, Marc, myself and Jenny, there is a doctoral student of one of Marc's fellow ESE PhD grad (who helped start up WaterSHED) --Ameer, who has been in Cambodia many times and appears to have picked up a fair amount of Khmer. Ameer and Jenny are a great team and have done a superb job on the study so far. Also there are 2 UNC students from ESE, Nick and Elliott who are here on a different project, but know Marc as well. So it was sort of funny to travel all the way to Cambodia to meet all these North Carolina affiliated people! The whole group of us went to a great Cambodian BBQ place for dinner last night and rode in a tuktuk there and back -- traffic is really something else here!

So we haven't do any really touristy things yet, but things will change for me today! While Marc, Jenny & Ameer do some re-training of enumerators today I'll be off exploring the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda -- and maybe get a massage afterwards :) I'm definitely in vacation mode!

Photos to follow in 2 weeks or so when we return to the US.