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.
