Wow! I'm back again to the wonderful little apartment on Street 178. Arrived on Tuesday in time for the King's Royal Ploughing day and on Wednesday, his birthday. Everything in the area has been cordoned off since the Royal Palace is just a block away. It's kind of like living at G Street and 17th NW in Washington DC or at Punchbowl and King Street in Honolulu. No matter what else happens the police will cordon off a huge swath beyond the royal's residence.

Tuesday I had a sit-down chat with Charlie Dittmeier, the Deaf Development Program's (DDP) director to outline what I would be doing during the next two and half short months. We worked out little bits of how my relationship with the program will be going. I will be taking lessons in Khmer language and Cambodian sign language and developing a video program for interpreters to use for voicing practice as well as advanced work on including classifiers in interpreting.

Tuesday night Justin Smith, the program's deputy program director celebrated his birthday at local restaurant. He is a Deaf man from Great Britain and has worked with DDP for several years. He took a break to get a master's in public administration and has come back to his present position. Having worked as a volunteer among Deaf people in the Phillipines he is fluent in ASL as well as Cambodian SL and his native BSL.

I gotta tell ya from a personal note ... never try being social on jetlag... It doesn't work you just embarrass yourself by falling asleep in public. I stayed as long as I could and dragged myself onto a tuk-tuk for a ride home. I fell asleep on the way, a bad idea since the driver took me several miles the wrong way (having misunderstood my directions.) We then had to argue our way past the police cordon around my block. "You may not enter the section for the Royal Birthday." "But I live on the block!" "You cannot possibly. You don't speak Khmer and you aren't Cambodian" "But lots of people stay in the hotels on this block who aren't Khmer!" "Yeah but you claim to -live- here." "Okay I'm visiting here does that make a difference?" "Oh a tourist.. welcome!" All while I dosed between sentences.