A 'normal' weekend

The shape of my weekends has changed in the last few months. I have begun to teach R's daughter - P - & his nephew - Sy - weekend afternoon when I am at home. This has then led to various R's family gatherings & making friends with R's wife - Sb.

This weekend in the 'Bong went something like this.

Saturday 7 am - khmer lesson with my lovely khmer teacher - S - these are now a daily occurrence as I desperately try to improve my khmer despite the lack of any apparent natural ability. Normally I would go swimming after the lesson but the pool was closed for cleaning this weekend & so instead I cleaned my house in preparation for my friends imminent visit. 

Lunch - with J at the veggie place by paramount bus station which for months only opened for breakfast but now has enough staff to open all day again - yay! Even though J & I have spent the whole week together working away we still manage find plenty to talk about - well J is a very good listener.

1 30 - 5 pm - P & Sy come to my house & attempts are made to learn english/khmer. P is 8 years old & has been learning english for 11 months - her english is much better than my khmer which she never hesitates to correct. Sy is 12 years old & his english is similar to P's but he has a longer concentration span. I have discovered some great on-line phonics teaching tools. I am not a language teacher & I don't pretend to be, but I can, for the time being, just about speak english & as they haven't learnt phonics I thought that this was something useful I could do with them both. They both prefer to play on my iPhone, watch TV, eat & drink and draw me pictures (P) / make me wooden objects (Sy). I really do enjoy their company.

Evening - this weekend's Saturday evening was out of the ordinary as S's son is visiting from France with five of his friends, so J & G organised a party at their house (which they rent from S). J & G provided the venue, music & a crate of beer, G made a variety of salads - of which the coleslaw went down least well with the Cambodians, S & her son brought fish & squid for the BBQ, the french friends brought beers & I brought a bottle of Gin & cans of tonic - which it would turn out was a grave mistake. Sb collected P & Sy from mine & with A (little sister of P - 2 years old) we all went to the party. Conversations in various degrees of english, khmer & french were had, there was delicious food, a lot of alcohol consumed, singing (Sb has a great voice), guitar playing (Sy is very musical hence G's name for him 'drummer boy') & dancing (mainly by me which for anyone who knows me will give you an indication of how much I had to drink). My normal bedtime is 10 pm - the Wat next door necessitates it if I am to get 6 hours sleep. I got in this Saturday at 1 am.

Sunday 7 am - Khmer lesson with S - anticipating the state I would be in she came bearing bread to dip in coffee. Despite paracetamol & Royal D I was seriously flagging but S isn't a quitter so we got through 3 pages of my grade 2 khmer book. I'm not sure how effective my adult learning was though. 

At 8 30 am when S left  I retreated to my sofa to nurse the mother of all hangovers - I must have been their for 30 seconds before "Esther!" was called through my screen door. Sb despite a hangover of her own was on time for our previously arranged khmer cooking lesson. P, A & Sy all settled down to watch TV & help themselves to the contents of my fridge whilst Sb took me to the market. On the first attempt at leaving the house I remembered my crash helmet but forgot my shoes. I really wasn't feeling myself.

I should go to the market more often with Sb - I always suspected that as a barang I pay double for food but this weekend I learnt it was nearer to triple. I have to say that watching the fish we later ate make an attempt to escape from its bowl onto the floor, be recaptured, get pithed, gutted & de-scaled wasn't the best cure for my hangover. 

From 9 - 11 am the khmer cooking master class was conducted. I was ashamed at my inability to skin unknown vegetables, my lack of essential ingredients in my cupboard & the dirtiness of my kitchen (and that was after me cleaning the day before). Sb has no english but reassured me in khmer that I worked so couldn't possibly be expected to clean, know how to peel mystery vegetables or cook for myself. I pointed out to her that she also worked (looking after her daughters, husband & home) - all without running water, modern appliances or until very recently electricity. Sb told me even R (her husband) knows how to cook & reassured me that I would learn quickly - my complete lack of any essential Cambodian domestic skills did not phase her. Have I mentioned recently the kindness of Cambodians?

G & J came around for lunch - G stayed most of the afternoon on the hammock on my veranda nursing his own bigger hangover. J was wearing dark glasses & I think she would have opted for a Thai floor cushions but she had a lesson at 2 pm with S.

From 1 30 - 5 pm I appreciated those on-line teaching tools. 

From 5 - 7 pm it rained very hard, hence no moto pick up as normal. P & Sy depleted my iPhone of battery power & moved on to watching olympic diving & inappropriately violent films. I think we have established I would make a terrible wife & mother - even my credentials as a doctor are currently in question. R arrived just as P was flagging & told me she was hungry - perfect timing.

So however much I may struggle with my work at the hospital, weekends like this one are the reason I don't ever want to leave here.

But I think it will be an early night for me tonight......

A portrait of me - apparently!

Sy made this wooden cigarette box

Step one of the fish soup - fry the fish. It was at this point that Sb realised I didn't even own an apron & probably why I don't have a husband. Ever resourceful she turned her cardigan inside out & wore it back to front.

Soup - water, a mixture of aromatic herbs& something that looks suspiciously like ginger but was reassured wasn't, the cut veg, some fried garlic, fish sauce & the fried fish - boil until delicious 

One of the reasons I don't tend to cook with meat here. Sb was very proficient with a cleaver & laughed when I told her I wouldn't want to make her angry.

A starting early with reading - these are khmer books for grade one, according to A the book is about G buying her a bicycle & J taking her swimming