life, swimming, turtles

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hey everyone

I'm in a speedy and wonderfully cheap internet cafe in PP at the moment, so will fill you in on the past couple of weeks. Nothing major's happened, lots of swimming, as it's rarely below 35 degrees at the moment, and there are a few new foreigners in Kratie to get used to.  We've been swimming in Kampi rapids as well, just up from where the dolphins are, which is really fun - the current is so strong, but it's about a foot deep, so you just find a stone to lodge yourself behind, and then it's like sitting in a jacuzzi! They've built wooden walkways all around it, with places for hammocks and mats, and food, and it's a really fun day out! There's also a Cham (muslim) boat family that has moved into where we usually swim, so we see them a lot now, and they have cages in the water made of bamboo and palms, and inside are giant COY! Goldfish in the Mekong! Plus some local boys we all made friends with swimming on Kratie side - we were all floating on our backs looking up at the sunset which was doing technicolor things to the sky, and then when we stood up, this massive group of kids that had been playing 100m away had ambushed us!! We spent the next half hour swimming in the dark, giving them marks out of 10 for somersaults off each other's shoulders. Kratie is silly as usual, some progress has been made re dolphins (ask me if you want to be copied in on the email with all the dolphin info - it's really interesting but musn't write it on here), and things are getting busier, with parties and games for the fast approaching Khmer New Year - I finish my placement just before New Year, and am going to Kampot, which is much like Kratie-on-sea, with David, Verné and Richard for the 5 day holiday. There are also lots of rallys going past, and our text messages have been stopped, as tomorrow it is the commune council elections. Yes, the elections are on April Fool's Day. It's been raining a bit recently, with wonderful lightening and thunder storms, and bizarely, this has triggered trees along the riverfront to go orange and drop all their leaves. Logical. Verné and I also have another distraction - manicures cost between 12 and 25p here, and they can do dolphins and flowers and everything, including the WWF logo. on a template. er, why not? Work is still rewarding, and I am trying hard not to think about leaving. I am going to be so sad. The other day was so much fun - they were providing a grant to a patient to set up a beauty salon, and Thida and her went to the market in the morning and brought back like 100 nail varnishes, hair straighteners, makeup and everything. So that day we pretty much kicked all the boys out of the office, and me, Thida, Phalla, and all the female patients had a ball! I continue to get more and more baffled and amused by Khmer culture, which makes me love it all the more. Btw I've now had the coffee sex joke explained to me - apparently 'cafeseck' is a Kratie expression, because, I quote, fifty percent of the time we drink coffee because we are going to have sex, and fifty percent of the time because we are going to drive. !?!?!? Also I was laughing so much the other day - Sarom was telling me how when he went to Las Vegas for a conference he was so shocked to see these huge signs with graphic pictures saying 'naked ladies, one hundred dollars,' and I thought he meant to say that their openness scandalised him. Then he turns around and goes, 'cos in Cambodia naked lady cost only two thousand riel!!' (50 cents), and just bursts into hysterics. haha.

Looking down the 900 steps of a pagoda on a hill I climbed at lunch on CBR in Prek Prasob district (over the river and South from Kratie) ... while Sokny slept at the bottom!
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So yes, there are now new expats moving into town, which is wierd, cos nobody has moved in since me, and before that the newest were David and Verné, in November. There's and Ayad (Australian youth ambassador) called Larissa, working in a Women's rights NGO, two British women, both VSOs, with the health department, a Kiwi medic with a landmine clearing company, and soon we're going to have Fernando, a dolphin expert from Peru for a month. Ah, new people, wierd!

I am in PP this weekend with David and Verné - turns out they stay with a friend in the same tiny street I stay in when I come! - doing some shopping and seeing some more of the city, the last time I'll be here before my flight home. Next weekend I've got people to stay in Kratie, and on the 12th 'the holiday begins and I'm headed to the coast. We're travelling back up to Kratie on the 17th, then I'm going down again on the 18th, and home on the 19th. Not thinking about it!

a swimming pool at the top...?
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I remember one more cool thing... we had to take a turtle down in the taxi to PP with us. It is a critically endangered giant Asian river softshell turtle or something like that, and it was found just north of Kratie district, by a fisherman who reported it to WWF. So they bought it, and paid for it to be sent to their office in PP. It stayed overnight in our bathroom, which is quite cool, as this is the second one of these turtles ever to be held in captivity ever. The first one doesn't count either, as it was ages ago, in a Vietnamese university, and it's head was all destroyed from smashing its face against the glass, and it died soon after. They've never ever studied their behaviour before, and hardly anything is known about them, like what they eat or anything, so they're building a huge tank with simulated environments for it, where they'll observe it for a month, before hopefully releasing it back with an electronic tagging device, if they can raise 3000us in one month. It's really wierd looking, only a baby, at 35cm, but the adults can reach up to ONE AND A HALF METRES wide!!! The shell is soft, and the head looks like a frogs, and it can extend out to half the body length again. They have little in the way of defence mechanisms, as their shell is soft, so their bite is vicious, and there are reports of them CRUSHING fingers, without even piercing the skin. So we had to keep it in a box with a wet tshirt over its head to make it think it was night time.

Wat?
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Anyway,

I have to go now but will try and come and do photos this weekend, I have loads to put up!!

all my love,

Laura xxxxxxxx