Sweet enough

After a funny few weeks of nothing much happening in my district due to rice harvesting and training from the Ministry of Education anywhere but Phnom Srok, I had started to spend less and less time there. Whenever I arrived home it seemed that I hadn’t been missed and most of my colleagues were not around anyway. Meetings and training we had planned for January and February were cancelled and postponed again and again which was becoming increasingly frustrating.

One afternoon I arrived at the office to find it empty but for Daney. Seeing my disappointment she suggested we head to Tropieng Tmar reservoir together to da-laing (hang out!) and so that’s exactly what we did. There have been countless similar occasions when there has been no work to do and/or no-one around to do it with and to begin with I would experience serious guilt pangs when I’d nip off home early or head to the reservoir instead of doing nothing at the office. Now, I feel free of that guilt and have discovered that usually such occasions do my mental health the world of good and often lead to very productive afternoons or at the very least, more knowledge and understanding of culture, relationships and what life is like for Khmer people. I have come to realise that this knowledge is crucial to the success of my relationships here and also adds richness to my life as I continue to enjoy new experiences here.
We had a fantastic chat at the lake in a mixture of simple English and Simple Khmer, and we both discussed our futures. Daney has applied for a job with a Cambodian NGO for which she timidly asked for a reference as she thought I might be mad with her! Far from feeling cross, I am over the moon that she feels confident enough and has the capacity to do so. She was a very quiet and shy general dog’s body at the office when I arrived in Phnom Srok back in November 2007 but now is a confident, capable and very motivated young lady who has become a district trainer for many training courses and has delivered workshops to teachers and school directors! I had hinted that Mr Sophan should consider grooming her for a management role in the DOE, particularly as he will retire in a couple of years, and this resulted in her being promoted to an Assistant position (rather than admin!). I will obviously be sad for Phnom Srok if she leaves as she has been involved in all the recent developments so far and could really continue to take the district forward, however I am so proud of her for taking an opportunity with another NGO!
She also talked about marriage (she is 25 and most Khmer women are married by this age), assured me that her family would allow her to marry for love rather than a business deal as most marriages seem to be, but that she wasn’t interested yet as she wanted to study and work first. We also talked about how we would stay in touch when I return to England in 8 months time which reminded me how quickly the time left is going to go (it’s already March for goodness sake!!). It also brought it home that this month was probably the most crucial as April and May are full of public holidays, soon after which the schools close for the 3 month holiday, then open again in October when I will be saying my goodbyes!
We took a different route home, down a back road I’d never used before behind Tropieng Tmar village. It was absolutely beautiful and more so because it was my favourite time of day when the light is really low, warm and soft. We passed the backs of wooden houses, saw the various animal enclosures, and passed numerous cows and water buffalo wandering home, gorgeous yellow hay stacks which looked like they were inviting me to jump into them and children collecting plastic bottles of palm juice. We collected a big bucket of palm sugar from one house for Daney’s mother and then with a friend we picked up on the way, started hunting for palm juice to drink! We found some and drank from the dirty plastic bottles dodging bits of wood and drowned fly corpses to taste the wonderfully sweet juice straight from the palm trees – delicious! I’m not sure who it rightfully belonged to, but it felt like it didn’t really matter much. If left to ferment the juice turns alcoholic which provides quite a different experience altogether and one I have sampled on occasions (in moderation of course!) but much preferred the sweet fresh version.