Haircuts & primates

I am down in Phnom Penh for a fortnight of language training and the theme so far is primates & hair.

The VSO office has moved to near the Olympic stadium and it was with much excitement & anticipation that I discovered there is a brand new multi-plex cinema nearby at the city mall, the first in Cambodia. For $4 Lou, Katie & myself spent 2 hours stepping out of life in Cambodia and into the first world one of suspension of reality. We went to watch Rise (or return as I keep referring to it) of the Planet of the Apes. It was a near religious experience with Lou filling up with tears at the sight of popcorn. The film was good but from my Bangkok experience I know that it could have been dreadful (Insidious) and a good time would still have been had by all. It is with mixed emotions that I look forward to going back to see Harry Potter - final installment - in 3-D, my first 3-D experience but I have been corrupted by Dr K's opinion on that one.

Then on Friday night a group of us went to see a performance of the traditional monkey dance with a contemporary twist. Seven traditionally trained khmer dancers have spent hours watching video footage of monkeys and choreographed a performance loosely based on the original moves of the monkey dance. It was absolutely fantastic and we were all blown away by their athleticism and convincing monkey moves (better than ROTPOTA and free!). Very tempted to return next friday for a repeat viewing.

Then there was the small matter of 6 months with no hair cut that needed to be addressed so abandoning the attempts to fill my head with new khmer words or even remember the ones I should still know from 4 months ago, I went in search of a hairdresser.

Now it is important to note that I have been going to the same hair dresser for nearly the last 20 years - Clive. I can count on one hand the number of times I have confronted my trust and control issues and allowed someone else to cut my hair instead - 1) As an expedition medic in Namibia -  Kelly - who was a journalist with a hairdressing past. 2) Twice in my 2 years I lived in Australia - Kylie - who also introduced me to the controversial area of highlights. 3) Lou - 4 months ago in a hotel room in Kampong Cham who I reluctantly accepted a 'trim' from.

London is the salon that many VSO and ex-VSO volunteers have recommended so I looked down the barrel of the prospect of wearing a hat for the next 3 months and made the leap of faith. This was especially brave as Janice had been there last week for a trim and now her hair is so short she can't tie it up. If you can try to imagine going to have your hair cut with no language to really explain what style you want - feel my fear!

On arrival I was sat down and a nice lady promptly squirted shampoo on my hair and started to lather up as I sat upright in the chair vaguely bemused and wondering where the sink was. What followed was a 20 minute head, neck and back massage with an awful lot of lather. Then just when I was beginning to get quite concerned about the prospect of the lady pouring water all over me whilst I sat in the chair and getting soaking wet, I was move to the back room where I discovered there were in fact more traditional reclining chairs and sinks. Further head massaging ensued, complementary ice tea was supped.

Back to the chair where the surly, mute hairdresser - the complete antithesis of Clive - came up to me with the one word question 'short?'. I anxiously tried to explain the concept of a trim and the need to be able to tie my hair up and the end of the shearing (in khm-english and international sign language). With no further discourse he than began to hack - due to his semi-blunt scissors rather than any lack of skill - at my locks. It was when he began to drag the scissors down from my roots to tips that I started to get really quite concerned. We (hairdresser & recipient) both became quite distracted by a wealthy couple  bringing their spoilt toddler in for a trim and both ended up watching as the child was with much distraction and semi-constraint techniques cornered into having a haircut. It would appear that the staff in London can cut hair on a moving target (toddler's hairdresser) and with out actually looking at what they are doing (my hairdresser).

My shoulder length hair (eek!) was then blow dried and for the first time in 6 months the hair on the nape of my neck was briefly dry. Just to make the point surly-silent hairdresser pulled my hair up to demonstrate that it could still (barely) be tied up then he walked off. End of haircut!

To be fair I would have paid the $9 purely for the head and neck massage.

So it is with shorter hair I continue to struggle with learning khmer despite the apparent lobotomy of my language centre and deal with the encroaching damp and moldiness of my guest house room. Yesterday I discovered my bag, birkenstocks and purse were all covered in a thick layer of green mold - so I guess if I get a strep throat I can always just lick them for a cure.

On learning a new language

When I first arrived in Cambodia I had 5 weeks of language lessons as part of in country training. Every day for 6 days a week we all cycled to class every afternoon and had 4 hours of khmer lessons. Every morning I would sit with my books at the Mekong Crossing Cafe having a long breakfast & try to make the words and grammar from the previous days lesson stick. The lessons were interrupted by a one week placement visit and it was horrifying to discover how much could be forgotten in 7 days. So having learnt the valuable lesson that speaking a new language takes a lot of hard work and study I promptly did no study for the first couple of months when settling into to life in Cambodia.

When my impotence at being unable to express myself reached a peak and my vocabulary was at an all time low, I arranged a lesson once a week with a grade 12 student who wanted to practice his english and earn some pocket money. I dutifully bought the grade one khmer book and set about trying to learn to read and write as well as speak and understand spoken khmer.

So once a week in my lunch time I meet up with Kosar and we attempt to go through the book. This however presented a few issues;
1) He has very poor english and is very keen to practice his english language skills and for me to help him with his homework.
2) He isn't a teacher & has no teaching ability - he is still a student himself.
3) Khmer has 33 consonants and 25 vowels (but the sound of these vowels changes with 'long or short sounds' making the grand total of approximately 50 vowels!), is not a roman alphabet and has sounds that my mouth have never articulated before.
4) Kosar expected me to read, write & speak all of these letters after the first one hour lesson.
5) I am not a very good student.
6) Despite my many previous academic successes he still manages to make me feel like an absolute idiot every week.

However he gets to practice english and earn some money I didn't really feel I could stop the lessons just because I wasn't learning any khmer.

J's Landlady is a physic teacher at the university and had taken it upon herself to start to teach G (J's husband) khmer every day at his home. She had also expressed an interest to teach other barangs khmer so G, acting as her agent, hooked her up with me and 5 other VSO volunteers. She managed to slot me into her busy schedule on weekend afternoons and for the last few weekends I have been getting into a routine of lessons with her. She is a teacher, she speaks some english and good french. However the lessons are still not straight forward khmer lessons and there are in fact three levels to them.

1) I learn khmer - the vowels all sound the same to me, there is no pattern to what sound is made when you attach them to a consonant, I can't remember how to write them one week to the next and I can't remember any words. The words I do remember I don't appear to be able to say in a way that a native speaker can understand and I still can't understand spoken khmer. Admittedly I am not speaking khmer all day every day and I am not studying every day so this may explain the slow progress.

2) Soyeth - or the landlady as she is referred to in VSO circles - really wants to improve her english. She is also widowed and her only son is studying in France so she has confessed she just enjoys the company and now she is busy teaching us all she feels less lonely. So most of the lesson involves us speaking in khmer-english and being distracted by talking about life, love and death. There has been plenty of laughter & tears, once she even leaned over and pinched my cheek. I have taught her to say "I need a wee". Its all good.

3) The landlady refers to me as 'the doctor' and a large part of the lesson involves a medical consultation. It started off with me offering her some paracetamol, graduated on to me seeing where she had 'traditional khmer medicine' - coining, her body was covered in deep purple bruises. Then last weekend she pulled out a blood pressure machine from her bag and we had a 30 minute consultation which included us both taking our blood pressures. I was laughing so much the machine kept 'error' messaging and she told me off for talking. This weekend I had to fill out a blood request form for her and then review the results and she brought all her medical notes which I had to review in a combination of french, english and vietnamese. When I had my last bout of gastro she even rubbed tiger balm on my back & stomach - there wasn't even a placebo effect.

What can I say other than it is a mutually beneficial arrangement.

Still I am not sure how the words I am learning from the grade one book are going to enrich my conversational khmer both at work and socially. It leads one to ponder what the creators of the book were thinking that Cambodian children of 5 years old need to learn, clearly that it is more useful to learn words never, ever used in common parlance.

Here's a challenge for you - make a commonly spoken sentence with the following words:-
Sowee Bai - to eat - used only when referring to the King eating
Dam Srie - the stalk of a rice plant
Kam plung kie - trigger of gun
Kai-ping-bo-row-my - full moon
Dow - to mark, to pinpoint, to suspect, to guess correctly
Kat-sigh-bow - to cut a symbolic ribbon
Dom-die - ball of earth
Harl - to fly (birds only)
Cham char - a type of tree
Kah - dry/dry up (but not any of the examples I offered in a sample sentence. As it turned out it is specifically used for when you are boiling water with something else in it - like a carrot!!!!)
Bay - to carry lovingly (this can not be used your smart phone!)
Bar bow - to rebel, to revolt, to riot (actually thanks to UK current affairs & BBC website I was able to make a sentence with this one)
Lay lar - desperately or uselessly
Sor char char - to interrogate
Lay loh -  playful or frivolous (OK, that describes me perfectly especially when in a khmer lesson)

My two favourite sentences that appear in the book are:-

Grandchild Chom sucks the breast of sister Pye - Breast is best after all but the public health campaign never specified whose - oh actually it did - MOTHERS breast! I guess we haven't learnt the consonant 'Mo' yet so M'dai - mother wasn't an option in this sentence.

Do not pull the trigger of the gun! Cambodian history has seeped into the grade one khmer exercise book - there is nothing left to say.

Rules of the road

In one of my early blogs I eluded to the Cambodian traffic rules or lack of them. Well it’s been 6 months and I think I now have a clearer understanding of what some of these at first mysterious rules of the road might be.

1)   As a pedestrian – except that you are not safe, EVER. Even if there is a pavement and it hasn’t been blocked off my chains (yes German Embassy that includes you) or a 4x4 Lexus or motos or extensions of shops and you are actually walking on it. Motos or cars will think nothing of mounting the pavement INFRONT of your path because going behind you and not stopping you in your tracks or actually running over your foot (this has happened to me once in PNH) does not appear to be an option here in South East Asia.

2)   Pedestrians when crossing the road just look straight ahead and keep walking. The traffic will move around you but should you stop or anticipate other road users actions, you will be hit.

3)   Use your horn/bell as much as possible. This over use of an auditory warning allows the driver of said vehicle to execute as many dangerous and reckless manoeuvres as possible. In the event of an accident – you had been warned.

4)   Do not ‘park’ – abandon your vehicle in the road, people can drive around it.

5)   Don’t use your mirrors, do not signal – just manoeuvre. This is particularly important when pulling away from a stationary position into heavy flows of traffic and when reversing.

6)   Cars/Motos – leave your indicator on. In an already erratic and unpredictable stream of traffic it is always good to confuse other road users. Of course if you really do want to turn left – switch it off.

7)   Always overtake someone who is indicating that they are turning left. Its important to cut people up when they are turning left even if the rest of the right hand side of the road is entirely clear for you and you could have safely undertaken them.

8)   Always undertake someone who is indicating that they are turning right. I refer to point 7).

9)   When overtaking try to get as close as possible to the vehicle you are passing. If possible if you can make connect with the vehicle or body of the cyclist that is even better.

10)If you have a trailer or wide load– do not allow for the extra width when overtaking. This is most fun if your wide load is at head height of a cyclist or moto driver.

11) On a 2-lane road it is perfectly acceptable to double or even triple the amount of lanes available to road users. However which direction the lanes are going in is completely optional. No need to be limited by the convention of driving on the right side of the road.

12) Driving directly at on coming vehicles is completely acceptable see          point 11)

13) Tuk Tuk drivers, if a Barang is cycling ask them if ”You want tuk tuk lady?” – just because they already clearly have an alternative form of transportation that shouldn’t stop you harassing them.

14) 4x4 Lexus drivers – it is essential that you drive like a complete twat

15) Bus drivers at all times drive as if the lives of 45 innocent passengers are not your ultimate responsibility, hence

·      Overtake on bends and brows of hills

·      If you have a straight road then underestimate the overtaking distance required

·      Overuse of horn is essential and should increase in direct proportion to the delicateness of passengers on board

·      Drive very fast  irrespective of road conditions

·      When encountering a slow moving vehicle wait until the very last moment before performing an emergency stop like reduction in speed

·      Drive on the opposite side of the road for no reason – especially if there are oncoming vehicles

16) The hierarchy of the road is as follows

1st.        Cow not due to any deep reverence to cows just because they can     do a lot of damage to your Lexus

2nd.      4x4 Lexus/Toyota

3rd.       Bus

4th.        Lorry

5th.        Taxi

6th.        Car

7th.        Moto

8th.        Horse/ox & cart

9th.        Cyclist

10th.    Pedestrian

However at the intersection between national highway 5 and my road to work I have tested this and think that a barang on a bicycle can easily take on a bus or lorry – I have had less success with the Lexus or cows.

17) If you follow all of the above rules of the road the Police can & will still find reason to stop you and try to get money out of you regardless.

Suffering doesn't have to be fun but it helps...

I know that out there among the small band of loyal blog followers there is a significant proportion of you that only really enjoy reading it if I am suffering - and to you I say - read & enjoy!

I had a lovely rejuvenating weekend and went into this week with a bounce in my step and joy in my heart - bouncing and joyfulness are short lived phenomenon here in Cambodia.

Monday - cycle into work in what I like to call "Liverpool rain" which strangely enough is what the doctor I met in the directors office also likes to call it - he did a masters in tropical medicine there whilst I was a medical student at the same university. We bonded over the pathetic-ness of english rain and then he told me that if my khmer was ever to improve I would need to find myself a Cambodian husband. This is a recurring piece of advice I receive here - I wonder if TEFL are familiar with this particular teaching technique? When I raised concerns about my age and hence no available similar aged cambodian men (all married by the age of 25) his response was "No problem! Plenty of OLD barang women like you come here and find much younger cambodian boys" - I didn't think it was worth trying to explain the concept of CRB clearance for my job.
Next stop was the bus to Phnom Penh and this is when the bounce and joy began to wane.
Firstly on the way there the rain went up a notch to the more familiar and less pathetic Cambodian tropical rain - result much wetness. Then the 6 and half hour bus journey involved FULL ON air conditioning. So lets explore this further - complete & total wetness AND full on prolonged AC - hmmmm result VERY COLD. Now Katie had come prepared with cardigan and anorak as opposed to my thin cotton shirt but what we were both still lacking, which other fellow cambodian passengers had remembered, were woolly hat, scarf and blankets. Huddling together like penguins in an antarctic winter we shivered our way down to PNH only mildly distracted by some very bad khmer karaoke videos. The Blue cover being a particular personal favourite.
On arrival to PNH Katie promptly turned as white as a sheet doubled over and spent the next 48 hours bed bound. There is nothing quite like doing a 13 hour round trip to lay feverish and delirious in a grimy hotel room missing the meeting you had travelled all the way down for. It would appear that it was not just me who was destined for a 'great' week.
As her friend and physician I purchased plenty of paracetamol, antibiotics, water & oral rehydration solution, also a sound personal investment it was soon to transpire.

Tuesday - After an inexplicable restless night I got up slightly disheveled and feeling less than right but put it down to going out in sympathy with Katie who is after all my astral twin. The meeting I had at URC I discovered was 3 and not 2 days long, putting my underwear calculations into complete disarray - still I think that the three cambodian men in my meeting who I told this information to were appreciative of my sharing.
Dr C from an NGO hospital commented on how quiet I was and asked me to speak more, when I pointed out to him that the last two times we have met we have had massive disagreements and one heated email exchange and I was just trying to avoid conflict the 3 of them beamed, "you are improving!" I was smugly told.
Dr R from URC was quiet and withdrawn so I asked him if everything was OK, his response was that he could hardly get a word in as I talk too much! So lets examine this one further - in 5 minutes I am told a) I am not talking enough and b) I am talking far too much - in the SAME meeting. Now what does a girl do with that kind of feedback?
By the end of the day we had completed two of the six training packages and I was feeling all warm & joyous about Cambodia and Cambodians, I LOVE it here I was thinking - I could stay here forever, maybe I should marry a Cambodian it would help with my khmer! I had failed however to take the warning sign of no appetite and not eating all day seriously.
1030 pm that night I woke absolutely freezing and yet hot to touch, I tried to get up and realized that all my limbs really hurt and as one Cambodian once told me, i was "in a severe headache". What followed was a very long night involving a fan, a toilet, diminished supplies of toilet paper and general badness. I HATE it here I thought - it is a dirty, disease ridden place, Cambodians are trying to poison me with their food - get me out of here!

Wednesday - Knowing that Dr R & D from URC were at other meetings all day and that the plan was for me and Dr C to complete the four remaining training packages by ourselves, I foolishly got up (not from sleep but from laying groaning on my bed) and tuk tuk'd in to the URC office. My limbs were in no fit state for walking or lifting and as I soon discovered my head wasn't so happy with sitting either. Poor Dr C spent the morning with me either in the loo or laying groaning on the floor with my laptop tipped precariously so I could type whilst horizontal. For the last half hour he worked silently on his computer whilst I moaned quietly under the table. It was at this point that he offered me IV fluids - this is the panacea in Cambodia - but in fairness to him in this case was probably indicated. When I asked him how much he would charge me - he was after all seriously offering to go out, buy an IV cannula, giving set and saline - he appeared genuinely hurt and told me that for me it would be free and that NOT everything in Cambodia was about money. After three failed attempts to sit up we decided it was best we called it a day and got a tuk tuk back to the hotel with him escorting me as his parents only lived around the corner. As I apologized for letting him down he replied with a sad little smile, his eyes said "you're not the first barang & you won't be the last" but his lips told me "Don't worry sometimes even I get sick"!
Back at the grimy hotel I joined Katie in her room so we could groan and moan and be horizontal together. There was also a long and detailed discussion regarding the colour chart of diarrhoea hues which kept us occupied for most of the afternoon.
That evening after 48 hours with neither of us eating we decided we should venture out and attempt to eat - jacket potato. This as it turned out was a grave error - Katie vomited and I spent another night seriously considering if it would just be easier just to sit all night on the toilet with my head pressed on the cool tiled wall - whimpering softly.

Thursday - It was decided that the only thing to do was to make a break for freedom - our trip to PNH wasn't working out the way we had both planned. Too weak and sleep deprived to care we tuk tuk'd it to the bus station & got our tickets to 'the hell out of here'. Katie was determined that her trip to PNH would not be for nothing so we went to the Pencil Supermarket. Whilst she went in on her quest for re-fried beans the following conversation occurred.
Scene - me slumped in tuk tuk - disheveled and haggard from 3 sleepless nights and badness. Young Cambodian tuk tuk driver eager to practice his poor english.
Me - getting out iPod in a preemptive strike to avoid any conversation.
Tuk Tuk Driver - How much?
Me - urgh?
TTD - your phone how much Cambodian?
Me - Not phone, iPod - me pulling out $20 Nokia - this is my cambodian phone.
Conversation about cost of phones and multiple SIM cards - long...dull.
TTD takes my phone calls himself on it, programs my number into his phone, then takes a photo of me with his phone.
TTD - Where you go?
Me - Battambang.
TTD - You live there with someone - you make babies?
Me - (In Khmer) I am not married - I do not have children.
TTD blowing his nose by snorting the snot directly onto the street - (In Khmer) I come back with you, be your husband and make babies with you.
Me smiling weakly & suppressing nausea - No thank you.
TTD - How old you?
Me - In my country that is a very rude question.
TTD - You are 40's
Me (In khmer) - I am 38 years old (in english) its just been a very long week already!
Long Silence..................
TTD - If you marry Cambodian man you speak khmer better.........
Saved by Katie staggering out of the Supermarket doubled over, green and clutching a bag of baked beans - ot mean refried beans.

The only way to describe the journey home is the complete opposite of the one down. Katie had come prepared with all her warm clothes at the top of her bag - these however turned out not to be necessary. We quite literally roasted at the back of the bus with insufficient AC and deafening in-bus entertainment that defied even in-ear head phones. It was good to see that the Cambodians still had the woolly hats, scarf and blankets out in force. The boy-racer bus driver was just an added bonus because when you are feeling nauseated there is nothing better than sudden swerving and emergency stops to help augment the feeling that you would rather die than remain another second on this bus.
At one point I woke up stuck to the leather seat, with the sun beating through the window, sat in a pool of my own sweat and my tongue stuck to the roof of my mouth thinking - how can the same bus company have such variation in their climate control?
But we made it back and Gary bought my bike to the bus station in exchange for his parcels I had collected in PNH. Katie & I then went and had 4 drinks each and some refried beans. This night the 4 am monk drumming did not wake me.

Friday - Today I remain appetite-less but able to stand so as I had training to deliver and a possible new VA to meet I went into the hospital. No 48 hour rules apply here.
Dr ON told me this morning after the morning meeting that clinical case reviews were difficult to conduct here because in Cambodia people don't want to take responsibility or be accountable - can't argue with that I thought.
Dr L told me that he had an idea that there should be a protocol folder on his ward - yes what a good I idea - I said. And I suggested that to you month ago - I thought to myself. I'm beginning to understand that capacity building is basically like marriage - to get what you want you have to convince the other person it was their idea all along.
Dr C emailed me to say - "get better soon ;-)"
Dr D emailed to thank me for all my hard work (didn't mention the whimpering on the meeting room floor).
The training went OK.
The love affair with Cambodia appears to be back on.
But when C - my ex-VA yahoo messaged me to tell me he misses Cambodian food & Malaysian food is simply too hot, he worries he will get sick. What is all this fast-food, it is terrible and expensive?  - it took all my will power not to not reply - THE FOOD HERE IS TERRIBLE & DISEASE RIDDEN & RIGHT NOW I'D KILL FOR SOME STERILE, FAST FOOD!
Meanwhile the Cambodian weight loss plan continues...........