At the pagoda

January 14th

I had quite a busy day. Last night went ok, there were a lot of French people and I talked to some of them. Corrine and her husband were there. I got to be quite friends with her as we are always together at work as she is explaining me her job. And when we went to Takhmao on Thursday we were chatting a lot in the car. We talked a lot yesterday evening too, about our families and stuff. She’s really nice. Most of the people had left by 11-12 but unfortunately my group of people were looking like they were planning to stay a while still. In the end we left at 1.30 and they all wanted to go to this new bar which had just wanted. I just wanted to hit the sack as I still had to be up at 6 the next morning. Thankfully so did Guillaume so we went home.
Waking up at 6 was indeed a bit harsh. I was falling asleep on my computer. I guess I’m still a bit tired as I haven’t slept more than 7 hours since I got here and the new experiences are quite exhausting in a way. I never remember actually falling asleep. I hit the bed and poof, I’m out.

Corinne called me this morning to see if I wanted to have lunch at hers at noon. She said we could talk about me getting a evening job as a translator or English teacher with her husband. It was really nice. They have a sweet house and their cook makes the most amazing food (for a third of the price of ours). Her little boy is adorable. He’s just 2, which is the age when they say funny things. He has a itchy skin rash all over his body and they went to see many doctors which could heel it. So her Cambodian nanny told her about this famous Buddhist monk who has magical healing powers. She asked me if I wanted to come with. What an experience. We went to this small village outside Phnom Penh. Today is a good day according to the moon and stuff so a lot of people were queuing outside his pagoda. When we arrived people were staring at us, really weirded out that white people were coming to see this guy. All of them spontaneously sprung out of their seats to make us sit, and wouldn’t take no for an answer. They couldn’t conceive that white people would stand up while they were sitting. And despite the queue, Raphael her kid was taken care of right away. First he was stripped off his clothes and the monk was throwing at him buckets of water while chanting Pali prayers. Corrine looked at the stale looking water with suspicion and worried that would not help his skin problem… Then they went inside the pagoda and the monk blessed a bottle of water and a little metal tube around a cotton string. He was putting a magical formula in the tube which was then tied around his waste. It was interesting.
Then we went around the village. I looked inside the school (I love seeing the kids at school, they are so cute and behaved!) and the pagoda. Then we went to the nanny’s house. She lives in a small house on a dusty path with at least 15 family members. They were all so welcoming, they brought us fruits and drinks. It was so laid back and peaceful. Corinne told me that’s how it is in Cambodia. You don’t have to call up in advance to say your coming, you just turn up. Then you sit at a table and they will talk to you the walk off to do something else, somebody else might turn up at the table, but if not, is perfectly fine that you stay there and just listen to the peacefulness. The host doesn’t hurry around trying to entertain the guest. It was nice. I real Cambodian experience.

Then they drove me back to Uriel’s. Man oh man you should see his house!!! A flippin palace. So modern and clean you forget completely you are in Cambodia. And his wife is nice. At the beginning she seemed a bit stressed out, which is normal, they have a 1 month old baby. But like there’s nothing Cambodian about their huge house. Even the food. She buys everything from the supermarket and gets a lot of stuff sent from the US. She works for an American Christian NGO. It made me quite envious and nostalgic as well. It was like I was in a western country again. All the expats I see here earn so much money and then there’s us KT people on local wages. I know I’m not in here for the money, but it still seems unfair sometimes. Anyway, so Uriels’ nice. We chatted and I took care of the baby a bit. Then they invited me to stay for dinner. Nice western salad and western pasta. They seemed very tired and stressed out though, I felt like I was in their way and that I should go as soon as I finished my dinner. They are leaving again Tuesday for a month. I wouldn’t mind if he invited me a lot…

I got back home on a motodop. There’s this African Party on tonight at the CCF (centre culturel francais) which I’d said I’d go to but I can’t be bothered. I’m tired and if I’m just gonna meet people like yesterday night then it’s not worth the effort. Tomorrow I’m meeting Dana from PACT at 11. I hope that’ll be alright. I hope shouldn’t agree to meet me just to be nice but really can’t be bothered. I felt like I was in the way of Uriel and Natalie already today I don’t want it to be the same tomorrow. Like I dumped this NGO at the last moment cos I found better, and now I’m asking her to meet up with me. Maybe I’m being too cheeky. I hope it won’t be awkward. So anyway, I prefer having a good night’s sleep on the only day I have off in the week. Problem is that I am probably making myself a reputation for being a party pooper…