Life in Kratie

Ok so it's lunch and I'm in typing this from a guesthouse near the market. I've got a bit more time now so will try and answer everyone's questions and give you an idea of what life here is like for me!

Every day I get up at 6ish (having been woken previously at 5 by the karaoke next door, or, in today's case, a loud AMERICAN porn film, and you just can't zone out and stop hearing if it's in your own language), and go for breakfast at the Star, a guesthouse with the friendliest Khmer staff ever (one has just had the cutest smiliest baby ever, Silvia eat your heart out), and delicious western breakfast (I'm talking pancakes with local honey.... home made natural yoghurt.... lime juice...). Breakfast is the one meal I prefer not to eat Khmer style - i.e. pork and rice. I cycle to work for half seven (on my beautiful red bike... whose tyres I'm getting repaired about twice a week on average so far! only 500r though - 4000r = US$1), and after the staff meeting start teaching straight away. I teach 4h a day in total, 2 in the morning and 2 after lunch, in small groups only - three one on one classes and one one on three! Karen, I'm using your books, although Headway is the ONLY book really used in schools here, so everyone has memorised all the answers to the Qs in the book, but can't do the same thing with any of my own questions! The groups range from complete beginner to relatively advanced, so for some people I use articles from the English language paper the Cambodia daily, which we get backdated a few days here in Kratie! This is the only thing that keeps me in touch with the outside world, since the house I'm living in has a TV but no channels. So yes, even here I am aware that Jade Goody called an Indian Big Brother contestant a popadom. Most of the TEFL textbooks however are totally Eurocentric... and people have a much narrower education, so excersises such as 'Morocco _____ (is / isn't) in Africa' are met with blank stares. As are all references to Disney (yes, no Disney here!) / skiing / Easter etc etc. Refreshingly, Macdonalds is also an alien concept here too!! When I'm not teaching I correct reports written in pigeon English to be sent to various international donors, and I also help run activities for children at the cantre - not necessarily patients, as a mother will often bring her children if she has to stay for a few days. They have some toys and colouring stuff for little children to play with but often they are just not interested, and will just sit there for hours with toys infront of them doing nothing. The different thing about children here is that they are much less stimulated - the mothers rarely play with them, so they are totally self sufficient, and never cry or ask for anything. If a child cries it gets ignored so they learn to just put up with falling and bumping themselves. We have some of those large bouncy physiotherapy ball things there, so sometimes play catch and other games with the children - these get the best reception. The other day one comes bouncing towards a 5 year old kid, he watches it, doesn't catch it, and it knocks him over and he falls to the floor. He doesn't cry, he doesn't move, he just keeps on sitting there!! A western child would be screaming for attention, but these ones are just so self contained! Also I'm always surprised when I ask a child's age to find out that it's like 5 years older than I thought - they are so tiny!!! And everyone thinks I'm at least 25, cos I'm tall! The first words I learnt here were 'srei sa'at,' meaning beautiful girl, cos everyone says it whilst pointing to my nose and my skin. In the market people always sssss and tut when I walk past, which at first I found really hostile, but now I can hear it's followed by srei sa'at, which I guess is friendly!

At lunch we have 1h30, and usually I eat Khmer food (at a restaurant called Khmer Food...) with my colleagues, and then go home and sleep for a bit. It's usually too hot for anything else... apart from the past few days there's been a really cold wind here - I'm wearing 4 tops right now and trousers!! But yes, the rest of the time it's boiling, so the best thing is just not to move. Work starts again at 1.30, and finishes at 5. Every day after work I go to the same sugar cane juice stall by the riverfront and watch the sunset. The people there know me now (the kids / grandparents / aunts / cousins all just sit around), and every day I'm adding another phrase to our conversations (along the lines of hello, good afternoon, it is hot, nice sunset, goodbye - this lasts half an hour). Every day the same crazy old woman comes to this stall too, and talks at me in Khmer for half an hour, whilst I reply in English. I really think we're getting somewhere now. She has the same bike as me and often doesn't bring it and insists on me riding her home on the back of mine (this is better than when she insisted I ride on the back and she cycled - she is like a bird, I am one of the fattest people in town. No really, buying jeans in the market was nigh impossible - most things are UK size 6!!), all the while repeating her name (Puch Sitaaaaa) incessantly. Once I asked what the Khmer word for 'why' was, and everyone was like No, never ask that, just 'what??!!' is enough here! I've now shown the juice stall family all the pics I brought with, so Pol, Kate, mis Parkesarris, Lily and others are well known faces on the Kracheh riverside now!! The funny thing is they can never tell the difference between any of the white faces, so keep pointing to the one of Kate (and sometimes even of Mum / Silvia) and saying 'that's you!'

After this I go home and shower (the house I'm sitting has no running water, just water in a tank, so it's more of a bucket affair), and get ready for dinner - everything is earlier here - dinner time is latest 6.30pm, and if I ride home later than 8pm it feels like the witching hour!! Dinner is at Red Sun Falling ( = sunset, 'thngae lek,' in Khmer), a restaurant / bar / book exchange place run by an American expat, Joe. Joe is amazing. He's been in Kracheh for 4 years, and in Cambodia for longer, having previously owned restaurants and a bookstore in Chicago. He's funny, incredibly well read (you would be too if you lived in Kracheh), and always interesting to talk to, and you'd never know he drinks more in one day than most people do in a fortnight. Joe's food is amazing, he has a Khmer menu, and also a western special every day, which is absolutely delicious. If you get fed up of noodles and rice and noodles and rice Joe's specials are the shizz, and his CHOCOLATE BROWNIES are even better. Kate, they rival yours. Joe's is the place where all of Kratie's expats are guaranteed to see each other, every evening. There are 9 expats here, all fascinating people involved in various projects here, so conversation is tres lively, and I have learnt so much from talking to them already. There's Barbara, an increasingly disillusioned  English VSO volunteer (the VSOs are here for 2 years min) at the provincial health centre; Joey, a Philippino VSO; Verne (can't do accents) and David, an Aussie couple working for WWF dealing with the ever decreasing Mekong dolphin population; Richard, a Brit also with WWF; Corina, a Finnish midwife with the most poetic English I've ever hear, ja; Adam, a wonderful Canadian with a Khmer wife, working in rural development, and Charles, an Aussie also in rural development. Charles, who has done similar things in Burma / Ethiopia / China / the subcontinent etc over the past 20 years, should be the most jaded, but is also an incorrigeable optimist, and sometimes  you'd think from listening to him speak that Cambodia is about to become a first world economy any day now. And lastly there's Andrew, a Kiwi who's been here for ages, and teaches English a coupl eof hours a day to get by! He also thinks the glass is half full... of poison. He's a total cynic, and the one whose house I'm sitting at the moment.

Ok lunch is nearly over so I must be off, but will continue tomorrow.

kisses xxx