...and continued again...

and this ancient Khmer man popped up and we were chatting to him for an hour – he spoke fluent French! I had a Moliere book in my bag and he was reading it aloud and acting it out!! Surreal!! He invited us all to lunch with at his house (they’d eaten lunch at 11 though so had to cook especially for us!!), and we met all four generations of his family... including his uncle, an EVEN more ancient man, with one tooth, and ate the most delicious food ever. Not sure what half of it was, but it was all home grown, including the dessert – hot mini bananas, and melons dipped in local honey (I am now on a mission to find local honey... it’s red, but the season is only just beginning...). He then insisted we slept there for a while (always rest after eating) so we obliged for a little bit but had to continue soon. Still, it was such a lovely experience, and I am definitely going back to the island on my own one weekend! We ended up leaving at about 5 – just in time as the ‘ferry’ only runs in daylight!

So all in all, a brilliant weekend, although have now nearly exhausted Krache’s list of things to do!! I was taken to a beautiful Lao pagoda yesterday though, which was also an interesting detour. This weekend have just been taking it easy, buying delicious food from the market... dried banana crisps... fresh hot french bread (all good with the MARMITE Helen brought up from PP... yum...), and just generally observing stuff in Kratie! Watching life go by here is fascinating in itself, and ever so slightly comic too. For instance, most women go round wearing matching pyjama tops and bottoms – in the daytime, this is. In Kratie these are seen as a stylish and practical ensemble, the height of fashion if you will. I still haven’t got used to this – especially since most of these pyjama suits are covered in huge cartoon characters and emblazoned with slogans like ‘my boloved lie head on pillowe.’ Allow. Another common sight is a couple driving past on a moto, one driving and holding a baby, the other holding the DRIP that is attached to the baby, pinned to a bamboo pole! WTF?!?! The work ethic in Cambodia is another totally different deal. Someone can have a giant pile of things sitting on their desk to type up, and will sit there for an hour picking their ear (this is why most men have at least two fingers with inch long nails. disgusting.), type one line, and then spend another hour looking at the wall / window / floor. Also job ads here are totally different – I haven’t seen a single one that doesn’t specify the age and gender required to do e.g. an accountant’s job well! A lot of stuff is not what it seems here though, which you soon realise, but which shocks nobody. Prostitution is absolutely huge here, as Khmer men are expected to be practised in bed when they get married, whilst women are expected to be virgins. Incompatible, much? Often when people say ‘karaoke’ here they mean the sex industry, and ‘bar,’ ‘barbers,’ or ‘karaoke place,’ can all mean brothels. It is such an accepted part of life here – fathers will take their sons to see a prostitute for the first time when they come of age, and the issue is totally ignored by the government. It costs one dollar twenty five to go with a prostitute here, and 50 cents to go with a Vietnamese prostitute. Ask anyone though and they will say that all prostitutes are Vietnamese, and that it’s not their problem etc etc – and the same goes for trafficked children used in porn films. You actually see articles containing government statements along the lines of ‘These are Vietnamese children and it is therefore not our responsibility to investigate the matter further.’ Someone was telling me about some research done into how freely available porn is in the country, and the results were shocking – not only is it everywhere in the markets in cities, but it was found that even in the most rural villages, kids as young as 8 were renting violent porn films containing rape scenes / drugging women etc etc for ONE HUNDRED RIEL (about eight thousand riel to the pound) and watching them after school together (even the poorest families will buy a DVD player for music videos before they invest in other stuff!). Scary. And attitudes to sex are sooo conservative – it is just not spoken about. There was recently a safe sex ad on TV with a guy dressed as a condom, and it got pulled after one showing apparently (despite prime time TV generally featuring X rated subtitled Chinese films with murder and rape scenes......). I just don’t get it!! And even though there are many NGOs working on the whole problem, I think it’s pretty slow moving... and apparently even the Khmer staff working for these NGOs often have to choose the hotel pretty carefully if they are holding a conference and don’t want to be recognised.

...

Anyway, I really must go now as have been on here for EVER, but will try and work out how to get photos up too!! Mum, Dad, I totally forgot to mention, when I was moving house I unpacked all the books and out of one fell your card!! Thank you for that!!!!! I think I am learning more than I’m teaching...... if the barrage of information above was anything to go by – much of which comes from Adam, the Canadian working for CRDT – an absolute sweetie. He invited me along to his office the other morning to watch the presentation for the Australian ambassador who was in town, so it was cool that I got to meet her too, and he’s such a mine (no pun) of information about so much in this country. He’s been here 5 years, and is married to a Khmer woman, and has done so many interesting things in his life... like after studying forestry at university he lived with a Karenni hill tribe in Thailand for a month just participating in the rice harvest, he’s well travelled in SE Asia, and he’s always talking about the work he does here. CRDT’s initiatives are absolutely ingenious, and what they achieve on such a minute budget is astounding – I will write more about them later, but I’m afraid I’m tired of typing now, and it’s five past six.... dinner time!!

To those of you still reading, thanks, and hope you’re all well! all my love xxxxxxxxxxxx