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Published: November 6th 2008
I'm smart! Not very comfortable, but definitely smart. Not as uncomfortable as I would have been had I not been so smart.
Arriving in P. Penh, I could have (wanted to) enjoyed an air conditioned room. Choosing the eco-friendly option, I survived there, and in Battembang, with a just a small fan and short cold water showers several times a day (its the ending of the wet season, so no letters of protest please). Without that preparation, I'd be miserable now.
Hearing the young girls get up at 5am to start cooking for the noodle stall run at the front of the property, I wandered out on the veranda, wrapped in my borrowed sarong, took a look around before flopping back down on my matress beneath it's mosquito net. I slept well for the next two hours.
Insisting on no special breakfast preparations, I left the raised living level of the new stilt home and joined many of the 'cafe' patrons for noodles and coffee, becoming the butt of their jokes once they heard me speaking Khmer! I felt accepted and loved and gave as good as I got (with a little help from Sophat when volcabulary failed me).
Soon it was time to find the keys to the two large sacks of clothing donations that had arrived unaccompanied by bus a week ago from PP. As I had stashed some of my not yet needed belongings in these bags, and because I didn't want to see the contents already for sale in the local market, I had kept the keys with me. They had wondered everyday what treasures lay before them.
I asked Sophat to explain that the clothes, blankets and toys were for children without families of their own, explaining they they could each choose one or two outfits for themselves (and for the new baby) before the bags would be repacked. Eighty nine year old "Yiay" wanted nothing, and the six year old boy was happy with my neighbour's childs fancy tiger costume, and as hot as it is here, he masqueraded as the last existing tiger in the Cambodian forest for much of the morning!
Being a Daughter of the Ex-British Empire, my early rise and exhausting three hours of languid movement qualified me to retire under my mosquito net once again, sprawl naked on the mattress with spray bottle of water to hand and a borrowed bedside fan positioned inches away from my face.
No wonder it took the British hundreds of years to finish raping their colonies, if the heat of the day paralysed all but the maddest. Lying back while servants waved fans, drinking GIn and Tonic to keep malaria at bay and whining in general about how invariably uncivilized the natives tended to be!.
How the heck did I find the energy two years ago, when I spent five months here, to "climb every mountain and ford every stream" (pulling leeches off along the way)? Perhaps it'll get easier, but until then, it's "goodnight" to all ntil the sun lowers, when I'll drag myself to my feet and see if Sophat really can play football (of the soccer variet) as he claims to be able to do.
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
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Matthew
non-member comment
How is everyone?
How are everyone? Grandma still drooling bettlenut? Hows the shop? Send photos. House done? M