Category — cambodia

Rumdourl and I went out for our last breakfast together on Monday morning. Grilled pork and rice at the restaurant just beside my house. All those months living there, and I had never checked it out, mostly because in all the time I’ve walked or ridden my bike past by the place, I’ve never seen a single female sit down to eat. But Rumdourl assured me that this place was yummy, so we braved the testosterone and ordered our rice and my coffee.

Sure enough, there were more than the usual share of curious stares. Rumdourl knew half of the people there — a fact that never fails to surprise me given that Kampong Cham isn’t a tiny town (supposedly over 60,000 people) but that didn’t stop them from ogling unabashedly and giggling in their somewhat disconcerting leering, but nervous sort of way.

But really, all this is beside the point of what I’m going to miss. Breakfast has always been one of my favorite meals and Cambodians are much the same. If we have an appointment in the field at 8, we arrange to leave at 6, to ensure ample time for a roadside stop for breakfast. And even if we’re running late, everything can be postponed to accommodate an hour for a steaming bowl of kway teiouv noodles, khmer donuts with coffee or garlicky pork rice.

I’ll miss the food itself — rice, meat and pickled veg is pretty atypical as western breakfasts go — but what I think I’ll miss more is the mentality that prioritizes breakfast and body over productivity. Sure, it can be irritating when you’re running late for a training, but I admire the peace and patience it takes to ignore (or at least postpone) so-called obligations to take care of primary functions first and foremost.

Storm filling up the river in Mondulkiri

One night back in April, I woke up to bright flashing lights in the window behind my bed. Half awake I squinted my eyes out of the window, but the screen-obscured view did little to tell me if it was from ambulance lights (seemed unlikely) or a strobe, or aliens (my number on hypothesis in my semi-conscious state). Totally curious, I groped for my glasses, wrapped myself up in my bedsheet (more for a sense of security than to protect from cold) and headed out to my balcony. Outside the entire sky was flashing, lighting up a wall of dark grey clouds from behind every 10 seconds. My first view of sheet lightening.

Storms in Cambodia are gorgeous. You can’t ignore the negative aspects – damage from flooding, downed power lines, the aftermath of pools of waters where mosquitos breed – but the storms are also part of the cycle that sustain a way of life. The rice crop, the fish yield, they all rely on the crazy wet season. It’s lovely being inside in a Cambodian downpour. The metal roofs amplify the sound of the rain so you can’t hear music from your laptop speakers, let alone hear yourself think.

Pumelos are my favorite fruit. Especially the small sweet, juice ones from Battambong that are slightly pink in color (opposed to the larger, drier variety from Kampong Cham that looks green and tastes better with chili and salt). You can get pumelos in California, sure. But there’s something about buying it from a lady in pyjamas who peels off everything but the base, so that the white pumelo sits up jaunty-like in its bright green base, beckoning to you.

And then there’s dragonfruit, which seems like it has to be cousin to the kiwi. I didn’t understand the appeal at first — its bright exterior seemed to belie its bland white insides — but then I chilled it and started eating it for breakfast with yogurt and a little bit of mueslix and I was hooked.

And finally longans — not those white things in syrup you find in cans at the 99 Ranch market — but the real deal. Red and brown and bumpy with a ridiculously sweet and fragrant juicy inside. Perfect plump packages of goodness. YUM.

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.

Another video on one our main programs:

Oh man, delicious.

Sambath, our district coordinator, heard that I was leaving and invited us all out for a delicious dinner: peanuts & pickled ginger (nice palate cleanser & that ginger gets your digestion going), beef with skin (beef, yum. skin, not so much) and grilled okra with eel (amazing if their teeth are a little scary).

The call the little sauce bowls “child bowls” and I had no fewer than 4 little children choices for my eel — salt, pepper and lime, two types of prahok based sauces, and a sauce based on fermented bean curd. YUM.

If only we could have gotten the karaoke going, the night would have been perfection.

Ever since people found out that I am heading back, my amazing coworkers have been inviting me to join them for special foods and festivities. So far, I’ve made fish amok, eaten grilled eel, had delicious grilled beef skewers with papaya salad, and on Saturday morning, Rith invited me to her house to learn two new traditional Cambodian dishes.

Rith’s husband is a police officer and she lives in a house behind the police station, basically in the field better known as the “old prison” just behind my house.I went over around 9am to find Rith and one of her housemates already busy washing veggies and roasting peanuts. As the morning wound on, 5 of Rith’s neighbors and their children came over to help chop, pound, slice, fry, marinate, and otherwise contribute to our delicious lunch.

Fresh-roasted peanuts for the ceviche

Cambodian Ceviche Salad (Plear Threi)

For Cevice and Sauce
1 kilo firm white fish*
1/2 cup prahok (fermented fish paste)
1.5 cup lime juice
3 stalks lemongrass
4” galangal root
1 kaffir lime
3 kaffir lime leaves
2 bulbs garlic
2 cups peanuts, crushed small
bird chilis
1 tbsp salt, or to taste
3 tbsp sugar, or to taste
2 tbsp cooking oil
fish sauce to taste
1/2 cup water
MSG**

Assortment of vegetables:
Cabbage and/or Lettuce
Thai parsley
Holy basil
Banana flower
Banana trunk
Cucumber
Bean sprouts

1) Wash and chop your vegetables. Cabbages or iceberg lettuce can be quartered. Other lettuce should be washed and the leaves separated. For the banana flower, use only the tender top half, not the stem. Cut the top half of the bud in half again, lengthwise, then slice thinly down the moon shape. Keep in a small bowl with lime juice and water to prevent browning. Cut the disk of the banana trunk in half across the diameter and slice similarly. Julienne the cucumber. Blanche bean sprouts to reduce the likelihood of disease. Put everything in the fridge or on ice to chill.

2) Process your raw ingredients: Remove the green leaves at the top of the 3 lemongrass stalks and chop the firm white bottom part. Process in a mortar and pestle or food processor until a uniform fluffy paste and set aside — you should have about 1.5 cups. Chop the galangal root, process as the lemongrass and set aside — about 1/2 cup, loosely packed. Remove the skin of the kaffir lime (some white rind is okay — it will not be bitter) and do the same as with the galangal and lemongrass. Repeat the process with the lime leaves and 2 bulbs of garlic. Chop your prahok until a wet, gray paste. Keep each ingredient separate for now.

3) To make the sauce base, or “krooung”** add 2 tbsp of your reserved galangal, all the lime leaves and lime skin, half your garlic, and 1/4 cup of the lemongrass into your mortar and pestle. Mash together into a paste and set aside.

4) Slice fish thinly (about 2 mm thick). Chop slices into small pieces, no bigger than 2cm x 1cm. It may be easier if your fish is frozen first.

5) To the fish, add salt, sugar, and lime juice and stir well. Add the remaining galangal, lemongrass, garlic and stir. Add 1 cup peanuts and mix it up with your hands. Continue for about 5 minutes, until the fish looks completely opaque (cooked). Squeeze the fish out with your hands, and place in another bowl in the fridge. Reserve the juice.

6) Heat 2 tbsp oil in a medium pot over a high flame. When hot, add prahok and stir well. Fry for 3-4 minutes. The prahok will be very fragrant and should start to froth and bubble in the pot.

7) Turn the heat down to medium, add your “krooung” and stir. Fry for 5-7 minutes. The texture should be somewhat dry, so be careful of burning. Sprinkle in some fish sauce to taste (1-2 tsp should do).

Continue stirring and add in the reserved juice from the fish, reducing the heat to low. Add 1/2 cup water and 2 tbsp sugar. Mix until dissolved and then remove from the heat.

Serve sauce in individual small bowls. Individuals can add peanuts and chopped chilis to the sauce, as desired. Put fish and vegetables in the middle. Each person will take a lettuce or cabbage leaf, add veggies and some fish and dip in the sauce. The mixture can also be eaten over white rice.

The fish, all cooked in lime

* Cambodians use a small, whole fish called Threi Riel (money fish). They defin, descale, and degut the fish, smash it flat and then cut it in half with a cleaver. The fish was delicious, but I found the small bones poked at my gums.
** MSG is used liberally in Cambodian cooking, but I tend to leave it out in my recipes.
*** “Krooung” means “ingredients” and is used to describe any number of pastes used for bases in soups, curries, and for marinating meat. Krooung can be as simple as salt, sugar, garlic and MSG, but your typical ones include a combination of galangal, ginger, lemongrass, shallots, turmeric, garlic, and kaffir lime skin.

The tiny guys they used — I might try a boneless fish, sliced thinly