Posts from — December 2008

Cows doing their cow thing on an island in the Mekong

Outside the door of the office, in the path of my bicycle on the way to work, on the side of the road, out near the river. The cows are everywhere and I’m going to miss them. When Jaime came to visit, he said the cows here seemed statelier than in the US. I have to attribute this in part to the fact that they are not bunched together in massive feedlots, giving off noxious methane fumes, but rather roam around picturesquely in 2s or 3s posing in front of beautiful pastoral views of rice paddies or rivers. Plus, I’m of the mind that many animals up close (because you get close when you’re about to ram on with your bike) are rather noble.

There’s a horse trail behind my house in Fullerton, and a few ostrich farms, but no cows as far as I know. So here’s a parting moo to my bovine friends.

Some evenings, around 5, when the sun starts to wane and the light gets silky, I like to hop on my bike and meander around town.

I head down my road, past the moto drivers waiting for a fare, past the metalshop, the carwash, the linoleum store, the agriculture supply. At 5pm, the afternoon session of school has ended, work is out, and folks are pouring down the road towards noodle soup dinners and home. On the left, I ride by the woodcarving shop with a noodle table out front, Prasac Microfinance Bank, the Cambodia British Centre where kids on crisply pressed uniforms just coming from school lounge outside on their bicycles waiting for their English class, the newspaper stand with the colorful and uniformly garish fashion magazines. Then the new fancy cosmetics store where they’ve installed plastic bucket chairs theater-style like those in an airport terminal or DMV, and where, around this time, they pull out a TV on the cashier’s counter and unlikely clientele (middle-aged men) will watch sports. I wonder if this element was planned, or just a bit of local color, and I wonder if they ask the men to buy some whitening face cream before they’re allowed to slouch down to watch wrestling.

At the corner, there’s the Bruins Blue-and-Yellow Hello cell-phone shop, which was constructed and opened since I moved to Kampong Cham. Here my street intersects with the “main drag,” a boulevard that I’ve described before, which appears to harken back from the colonial era — jaunty decorated lampposts, and nice benches. Later in the evening, there will be the heartbreaking scene of a malnourished teen and two or three kids taking turns sniffing glue from a paper sack. But now, there’s just traffic and a man in a jogging uniform walking up and down pumping his arms to an imaginary beat.

Across the boulevard, I pass the Chinese School Market — bustling in the late afternoon. In front of me, there’s a man in garish camo pyjamas and a fisherman’s hat with the drawstring strung tight across his neck. There are kids, kids, kids in their white oxford shirts and blue pants, sitting 3 to a moto, or riding on the back rack of the bicycle, some heading for home, but mostly for the riverside where they’ll ride up and down in packs, laughing and flirting. There are ladies in Khmer pyjamas — like the scrubs of nurses who work in a pediatrician’s office — shapeless uniforms with prints of teddy bears or bunnies or bright flowers. Market-going attire.

On the corner in front of the cellphone repair shop run by Rumdourl’s brother is my pumelo lady. Perfect green orbs stacked neatly in a pyramid. I pass the meatball stands in front of the Vietnamese Clinic, pass the woman frying bananas in sesame batter, pass the sugarcane press. The men on motorcycle row call out “hello” as I go by, and then I’m passing the plaza with the painted-gold statue of Hanuman the monkey fighting his brother, and then I’m at the riverside.

The bridge is beautiful in the evening light, so I turn right and head down a ways and then stop to look out over the water. The water is way down in dry season and the pylons are bright orange on the bottom where the water used to be. Huge trucks with lumber from exhausted rubber trees and perhaps from as far up as Mondulkiri make their way over the bridge, passing lovers on motos heading the other direction towards the roadside stands where you can lie in hammocks drinking soursop juice and eating fresh cobs of sweet corn, either grilled or steamed.

A bit further down the riverside is a school. There’s smoke billowing in the courtyard and spilling out to the street — it smells sharp like plastic so I try not to breathe in too deeply and wonder how the kids can continue to run around and fly their kites in the middle of the cloud of fumes.

Riverside vendor with his kites and inflatables

I’m feeling especially alive, so I decide to take the path through the Cham village, where it’s marketing time. No pigs here, only shiny beef and vegetables and sometimes a random goat. Then I’m past the ladies in their headscarves and the bearded men with turbans, past the huge Muslim Aid banner, and up next to the white mosque, with its silver tiled minarets that glow at this time of day.

A picturesque trash heap right before the Cham village

Kids play in the courtyard of the neighborhood mosque at twilight

I take the quick route back into town, by this time it’s nearing dark so I make a careful circle at the roundabout and head up onto the bridge. It’s tough going with no gears. The bridge is relatively steep, but I power on until what seems like the highest point, where I get off and survey the mighty Mekong. Across the river, you can still make out the outline of the signal tower. Then there are some disco lights, and behind, the “skyline” of Kampong Cham town. There’s always a breeze up here, even on the warmest days and it’s pretty much deserted, for which I can thank Cambodian superstition about the ghosts of frustrated lovers who jumped and now haunt the bridge.

The Kampong Cham skyline from the bridge

Riverside at night

Eventually, I head back down, coasting all the way back around the circle, down the street to the Starmart where I head in to pick up some vanilla yogurt — which always comes with tiny plastic spoons.

Consonant practice

I gave up my Khmer lessons back in September, but I still pick up new words every now and then, generally food-related, like how to ask for sticky rice at the market. I love surprising people by going beyond your usual “Hi, I’m from the USA. I like mangos.” to asking about their family and their work and other advanced-beginning sorts of topics. Even when I tell people I’ve been here 9 months, they’re still amazed that I’ve picked up enough Khmer to ask them the number and age of their children and explain what I’m doing in Cambodia. There’s the joy of talking, and then there’s the letters, which are so beautiful that just practicing them was like meditation. So many signs are in English here, but I’m delighted when lettering is in Khmer — even though I can’t understand it (I gave up before I made my way through all the vowels) it’s pretty to look at.

It’s going to be sad to go back to the States where only a small number of people even know what Khmer is. I will have to take some trips to Long Beach to practice.

December 2, ten days until I take off to return to the US.

Yesterday on the first, I had a small going away party at my house — one last hurrah before heading out of Kampong Cham. In all, around 25 friends and coworkers showed up, filling the living room and spilling out onto the balcony. I cooked Hainanese chicken rice, two kinds of curry and steamed fish, and most people chipped in food — amok, fruits, plear threi, special soup, pork lime salad, tempura, strawberry jello. The pots and platters spilled off of the dinner table to the coffee table and the floor. I thought we would have too much food, but everyone did their part and by the end of the night I was astonished and impressed at the scraps and bones that remained.

The action

The bare bones

I wore my new Khmer outfit — made by a local tailor to the pattern chosen by Sopheap and Somart. Even Vandong the monk came, though per his alimentary restrictions, all he had was a soybean drink.

Showing off my new outfit with the beautiful Muoy

A contingent over on the floor got their drink on, and finished 4 bottles of Randonal “power” wine, some ABC Stout, and about a dozen cans of grass jelly.

Somart, the party animal

Sarah drank her fair share of the Rum.
Rumdourl looks on, amused as usual

To honor my departure, everyone stayed later than usual. Somanee started the exodus around 8:30, and the rest followed soon after.

The girls out on the balcony.
L to R, Somart, Sok Pi, Sopheap, Van Dy, Sambath, and Muoy

By 8:45, Peace Corps Sarah and I were the only ones left. By then, magically, the leftovers were put away, the dishes were all cleared and washed, the floors mopped, and the furniture put back in its place.