Quite Random

This is Cambodian frog!

Last night I ended up eating frog courtesy of a man with things growing between his teeth.

We’d been out for the night with Julien, a previous occupant of Siem Reap back for a visit, and ended up in X Bar, a place where time seems to become irrelevant and Ranjit maintains the utmost decorum when serving beers despite being surrounded by inebriated Norwegians. It was a very pleasant night, lots of people we knew were out, and Bella, now without her puppies, even came along and lay under the table looking a bit worried, occasionally seeking a reassuring scratch. At about half past three we felt like eating, so we went to the street stall that stays open nearly all night for rice noodles. Frog man was sat there, very, very friendly and very, very drunk. He could hardly string together a sentence for all the laughter. He decided to share his frog with us, and Julien and I obliged while Hannah looked terrified that she was next.

Frog’s overrated in my opinion, too many bones, but this guy was evangelical. “This is Cambodian frog! The best frog!” he chuckled, fishing around in his plastic bag amongst chilli and garlic for another bit of frog. He then decided to introduce us to what he claimed was an old Cambodian tradition by swapping everyone’s beers around, but I drew the short straw and got his. Given what was growing between his teeth I wasn’t feeling so thirsty any more.

t’Internet and a freaked out gecko

I am now reading the news ($9.11 for Rudy? What was he thinking?), checking email and blogging from the comfort of home, on just about the worst value Internet connection ever. Think everything is cheaper in Cambodia? Not likely. I have a 256k broadband (ha ha) connection, which is costing me $89 per month. $89 for the luxury of Internet from home. And as for a 1MB unmetered broadband connection? Don’t expect much change out of six thousand dollars per month.

Installation of the new Internet connection was fun. Nothing but a phone call to some poor sucker in India for you in the UK, but here, a wireless reception booster strapped to the top of a very tall pole overlooking the crocodile enclosure, engineers scrabbling around in the roof, and some very confused faces when setting up the necessary connections on my laptop. Still, here we are. Just. I’ve only been cut off fifteen times tonight.

It has been a good day. The girl that I co-sponsor came to the Sangkheum Center to talk to my young adults group about working in a hotel – she works in one of the best places in town part time, and they move staff around so they do a bit of all of the jobs. It was great to see someone I taught English to two years ago, doing very well now, and coming back to give my group some insights. I can see a lot of potential for the young adults who get jobs in the future to come back to the Sangkheum Center and mentor their younger counterparts. With the public schools timetable now set for next week, I’ll also have more time to prepare better lessons for the group as I will only work afternoons, with my group in school in the mornings. That said, I have to leave Cambodia by next Wednesday as my visa expires, so it’s time to go and see Laos.

I have the house to myself – from sharing with three women to nothing more than a freaked out gecko in the kitchen and a gigantic stick insect on the balcony. Hannah and her friends return from Phnom Penh tomorrow, so I am once more treated to a gaggle of freshly showered babes, but also have to wear pants indoors.

In the staff room

David (another teacher at the Sangkheum Centre) and myself sat in the quiet of my classroom today reading papers and drinking coffee. Superb. We have a staff room. Well, we have a staff room until the kids turn up for their lessons or Voth, the Grand Matriarch of the Sangkheum Centre, wants to come in for rice or salt from the store cupboard in the room.

Voth is a formidable woman. She manages to sound menacing without actually shouting, uttering commands in machine-gun Khmer that have the girls in the kitchen chopping lemon grass or grinding pork in double time. Earlier today the rain started (it has been chucking it down the last few days, so much so that the path to our house has turned into a quagmire), yet Voth appeared moments after a shower on her moto, bone dry. Dave suggested the rain was actually too afraid to fall on her. I believed him. This then turned to the idea that if she were to drive her moto into town, the mud and water covering Highway number 6 would actually part for her as the Red Sea did for Moses.

Yes. Voth is the female Cambodian Chuck Norris.

I am still struggling to get over the idea that I flew into a very long, very elaborate slapstick comedy when I came here. The minute you start taking anything seriously, you’re done for.

Normal life

It’s incredible how virtually any situation can become normal after a little while, even if it started off feeling very strange.

My normal day starts at around 7, waking up to the sound of the family below scuttling about in the front garden and washing. For washing they use, like most Khmers, a large iron water pump in the front garden, surrounded by a concrete basin. The sound of the pump creaking, water splashing out in time, has become very familiar. It’s not unlike the noise my roommate used to make in college in the mornings. While Cambodians are generally a reserved and polite people, they think nothing of washing out in the open, so when I walk out of my front door on to my balcony in the morning, I’m greeted by the sight of my landlady in the front garden, wearing a sarong, hair covered in shampoo, waving at me and chuckling. She’s a sweetie. I swear the world could be falling apart, famine and pestilence all around, and she’d still crack up laughing and say hello when she saw you.

The morning commute consists of a walk through the monks’ living quarters at Wat Bo, where I tell at least five monks that I’m English, I’m a teacher, and I’m going to work. The morning exchange of “soseday! sokh sabay! where you go?” is the same every day, but is very reassuring and makes me feel at home. Then it’s out on to the main road where a rabble of moto drivers shout “sir!” at me, before we negotiate the price for a moto ride to Teukville. Always $2.50.

The traffic is heavy, but my moto driver weaves in and out of cars, trucks and other motos with consummate ease, only occasionally scaring the crap out of me by driving like he’s Steve McQueen in The Great Escape. The road to the Sankheum Center has become familiar, so I know where to hold on extra tight to the moto to prevent myself from flying off the back when the moto driver throws the bike into a two foot deep pothole.

Any day at the Sangkheum Center is going to be different at any rate. Combine teaching my young adults with going on errands to buy chairs and playing monster to three hysterical four-year-olds, and ’sweaty’, ‘knackered’ and ‘contented’ are three words that come to mind.

Back into town at the end of the day, and it’s all about a cold beer, meeting friends, saying “no thank you” to thirty assorted tuk tuk drivers and masseurs, and finding food. Eating out here is cheaper than eating in, so eating in becomes the luxury, not the norm. If it’s a quiet night, it’s home for CSI on AXN, a movie on HBO, or a $3 knock-off DVD from the shop in town. I also have websites to work on at the moment, and I’m trying to read Vernon God Little, but it seems like at the moment, I’m asleep before my head hits the pillow.

This supposedly being a travel journal, I realise this may all come as a bit of a disappointment, but I’m enjoying it. In the next two weeks however I might be going to Laos, so I will try to be a bit more Palin and a bit less Sunday supplement.

Make do

Sometimes it’s all about doing your best with limited resources.

• Today I spent a short while explaining the scientific reason for summer and winter to my class, using two footballs. One kid was holding a football and standing still, I was running round him in circles, spinning my football at the same time. They said they got it, but I think they just said that to stop me running around in a sweat.
• Last night, I tried to explain in diabolical Khmer to the landlady that our shower was useless - a disappointing dribble of water. Nothing they could do, the water wasn’t at a high enough pressure. Then, right on time, the sky opened and torrential rain came down outside. I ended up showering in the front garden, and even washed the motorbike at the same time.
• Computer lessons aren’t possible just yet due to an absence of computers in my classroom, so on Friday I’m taking my class into town in a pick up truck and hiring out an Internet cafe for an hour. I’ll have them all on Facebook within the month.

Today was mostly taken up with chair shopping. I have bought twelve chairs with collapsible tables attached, a world map and a whiteboard for the classroom I’m teaching in. This was after trawling round Siem Reap trying to find the best deal. After visiting the first shop and coming to the conclusion that a white guy shopping for furniture seemed to automatically increase the price by twenty-five percent, I hid in the car and let Chamran, my Sangkheum Centre colleague, do the talking.

From one month ago and having way too little to do, I now have more than enough. Swings and roundabouts, eh?

You want tuk tuk tomorrow?

The tuk tuk driver is an optimistic creature, you’ve got to give him that. Walk out of any bar or cafe, or down the street, or out of your house, even just stand up or look like you’re going anywhere in the next ten minutes, and he is there, asking if you’d like a tuk tuk. If not today, maybe you’d like a tuk tuk tomorrow? The day after? The tuk tuk driver is omnipresent, on every street corner. On long nights with no business he’ll lie in the back of his own tuk tuk with a couple of mates, playing Khmer pop music on his mobile, but always ready to pounce on any passing business.

Contrast this with a taxi driver in London. Assuming they even stop, you tell them where you want to go, and they may mull on it for a moment before saying ‘nah’ and driving off, leaving you on the pavement throwing profanities at the back of their head.

Tuk tuk drivers may get annoying… no, scrub that, they do get annoying, but at least they don’t get sniffy about going South of the river.

In other news…

Bella’s puppies have opened their eyes, and have started exploring their surroundings. Like true Khmer dogs, it seems several of them have already learnt essential skills. Flinching for one. I can see a bright future for them, eating leftover food and getting run over by motorbikes.

As Hannah and I now have things to do, which are in separate places, I have had to spend a lot more time telling people that we are not together when asked by various people “where is your wife?”. Hannah and I have done our bit to contribute to this misunderstanding by bickering like an old married couple. No we haven’t. Yes we have. Oh you would say that.

I now have a voluntary job as a tutor at the Sangkheum Centre, an education and childcare centre outside Siem Reap providing support to children and young people from disadvantaged backgrounds. I’m responsible for a group of young adults, aged 16–18, who need career guidance, conversational English teaching and vocational skills training to prepare them for work placements, study, and integration into society as independent, resourceful people. It’s a new project, with a lot of potential, in need of timetables, an administration and assessment structure, further development, and not least funding. I’m very excited.