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Published: November 13th 2008
There's something reminiscent of my boarding school days in this dilemma. I have on the table before me three freshly baked baguettes and only two small portions of butter. The choice as I see it is to either spread each bread so thinnly with butter and taste nothing, or slap the stuff on one piece and enjoy it?
If this decision is to be my greatest challenge of the day, I'll be laughing!
5pm: Of course that wasn't to be the case. I waddled into Terres Rouges with clothing stiffened by the red dust and a hacking cough, took a shower fully dressed with the intent we would all come out a little cleaner than when we started, and now sit in the evening light trying to make sense of my day.
A phone call in the middle of my breakfast dilemma spurred me to life and in five minutes I was on the outside of the iron gates, ready for Sophat to sweep me off my feet and onto the moving bike. It didn't quite happen like that but there was no hanging about, for our mission was to intercept my contractor who was beating his estranged spouse at the slum he had left her living in when he moved in with Sophat's (ex) wife Sonie.
How did I become involved? Requesting a meeting with me last night, I heard his wife's story, noticed her two dirty, barefooted, barely clothed daughters and saw her attempt to feed them by running one of the squalid roadside stalls selling rice with soup for 19 hours a day. At 500 riel a song (about ten cents), young boys pay to sit in the filth to sing karaoke on a cheap distorting system until the early hours of the morning.
I heard from her what I knew to be true. My nut house was not finished because the money had gone to support a secondary household with Sonie and her son's by Sophat. I had the plan to invite my builder to talk with me the next afernoon but news of the argument going on brought us all together at the same place. Serendipitous.
Thirty minutes later I walked away, having made it clear what his choices were and If the correct one wasn't chosen, he would be in the courts facing our Corporate lawyer from Phnom Penh (scary stuff. I was scared at least ..at the potential cost of such a threat). The contracted time to finish the house had expired three months prior and what had been built was shoddy and with inferior materials. He owed the Corporation the money wasted and additional funds to put right what was unacceptable construction. The one piece of land belonging to them would become ours by way of recompense, and with money from the sale, it would be our decision, upon their divorce, to assist what was his family by whatever means practical!
My intent was to scare him as never before. I warned that if he or Sonie took one step onto that property to intimidate or hurt his family, the police would be paid to respond to the call and arrest them. If he ever again laid one finger on his wife, he would go to the jail. I reminded him that he had no money and no power over the wealth of a foreigner and that he will brought to his knees!
After that (cue in light hearted music, to gaily skip along to..) it was off to photograph the nut house, check the needs of the family looking after the farm, negotiate additional tracts of our land for them to grow more soy bean and vegetables, and to remind them to be self sufficient. They live in the house rent free and are able to sell anything that can be produced on the land. This includes fruit from more than fifty banana trees at the far end of the property. Yes they need an old bike to travel the 15 km into town, but we don't have the money unless Sophat can retrieve the pawned bike, that was sold to the local police, who sold it to someone in another province....and on goes the story!
God that felt good to get all that out!
And what did you do today?
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Matthew
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La Cosa Nostra
Your Father, "Don the Don" would be so proud! Juanita "The Barbarian" Accardo! I think my family would do well in that environment. Gary"You No Me"Accardo, John "PitBull" Accardo, Tony "Bad Knees"Accardo, and Matteo"Who's for Lunch" Accardo. Just remember that the original one who began this cycle, is still riding your cycle. And the Play Station, Sonie, gets getting mo monie. You need to contract a thug to monitor your assests while away. A great man once pontificated that" I can humor a missdmeanour, if I get what I require." He must have been Khmer? Be careful.