See the gallery New House for photos from this post.
Cambodia's adeptness at flexibility is nowhere more evident than on the roads. Actually I've been thinking the the roads here are a metaphor for the way that Cambodians live life: don't look back – just forward; not much good at planning but great flexibility to adapt to new situations...
And so the flexible approach has turned up a great result for me once again; my contract has been extended for another 12 months, so I'll be calling Phnom Penh home for another year. I decided that this called for some change, so I hooked myself up with a load of estate agents and home-finders, and spent a lot of time chasing them up, and less frequently, looking at places to rent. It's not that different from looking for a place to live in Australia; you look at a load of junk and eventually find somewhere you like. The situation is made a bit more tricky here, A) by the language barrier and, B) the assumption that all foreigners are looking for something 'modern'. 'Modern' isn't all it's cracked up to be, though, and in my book, lots of shiny tiles do not a good apartment make. Eventually I was shown a traditional Khmer wooden house which fit the bill about as closely as I was going to get. So now I live at the end of a quiet lane behind the royal palace, walking distance to almost everywhere (except work, which is now a moto ride every day), and as one of my work colleagues put it so beautifully in an email recently, smiling face getting on me!
Big news in Phnom Penh; we now have not one, but TWO cinemas! Actual cinemas. With popcorn and 3D! So far there's been a fairly heavy roster of rubbish movies, but a few of us mobilized one Sunday afternoon recently and took ourselves to see Thor 3D. Now this isn't the sort of movie I'd usually go to see, but it had been about three years since I last sat inside a cinema, and besides, it's $6. It was brilliant. Not the movie of course, but the whole thing of choosing our seats, buying stuff from the candy bar (this needs work; so far there's really only popcorn and drinks and some weird Asian snacks, but popcorn and a drink costs $2.50!), and sitting in a proper cinema for an hour and a half had my entertainment meter peaking out at 10/10. I can't wait for the Fast & the Furious, Cars, and Kung Fu Panda to finish and something good to be on. I might be waiting a while. Oh well. Patience is something well worth practicing in Cambodia....
I've now celebrated a second birthday in Cambodia. I had a horrible moment (it actually lasted a bit longer than a moment) the day before, when I had the alarming realisation that that was to be my last day of being 40. I had been feeling so smug for the past year, happy to have crossed that threshold with the comfort blanket of calling it 20:20... I hadn't given it any thought whatsoever that once I got beyond that, I am always going to be more than 40. MORE THAN 40. God. What a blow. However, one of my excellent friends provided me with the very useful idea that in fact it is only 20:20+1, so that is what I'm going with. It makes me feel better. The HR unit of the NGO that I work with has recently decided that each month it will acknowledge and celebrate in some way the birthdays of everyone for that month. September was the inaugral month for this group birthday party, and each of us birthday folk were presented with a gift. I had to leave early (meeting with the new landlord to discuss price etc) and missed the bit where the other people were given their gifts so I don't know what they got, but mine turned out to be a white towel. This is the second white towel that has been bestowed upon me by my colleagues – the last one was at Khmer New Year. I really appreciate the gesture, but a white towel is just not something that I would buy here; the washing machines don't have hot water, they don't do a very good job, and the water is a little bit on the brown side... Not great for white towels. Anyway, that's what I got and I'm grateful for it.
That same week, the Australian Ambassador threw a cocktail party at her residence for the volunteers working in Cambodia under the Australian government-funded volunteer programs. The thick card stock invitation with the gold-embossed Australian coat of arms arrived at my office by courier a couple of weeks before, announcing that the pleasure of my company was requested to celebrate 60 years of Australian (government-funded) international volunteering. It was all very swank, the Ambassador and her husband were marvellous hosts, she gave a delightful speech, and much food and drink was had. It had started at 6:30pm and at about 8:30 the Ambassador and her husband positioned themselves by the front door. This went wholely unnoticed by pretty much everyone, and so after about half an hour they gave up and came back to the party. Really, they should have known better than to invite a bunch of Australians, especially ones whose limited incomes don't usually include canapes and bottomless wine, and expect them to leave at 8:30!
I have only two animal incidents to report for this post... One is that my ant allergy seems to have kicked up a notch... a recent bite on my arm produced a swollen red welt the size of my hand (my whole hand - from finger tips to the heel of my palm), and while the swelling and redness went down after a couple of days, antihistamines and slathers of hydrocortisone cream, the whole area was sore to touch and felt like a bruise for days. The other involves actual, very unattractive bruises, caused by a half-hearted attack by an Alsatian that seems to live in a big house around the corner. I was cheerily walking home from an excellent coffee shop near my new home when a black Lexus pulled across the footpath blocking my progress (this is nothing unusual). While I waited for the huge gate to be slid open so that the king of the road could enter, a huge Alsatian ran out of the gate and straight for me. Next thing I knew it was on me, scratching my foot and one leg with its oversized claws, and doing a very good impression of biting my other leg. I whacked it with my umbrella and screamed at it, while the woman who was standing at the gate and had something to do with either the Lexus, the house and/or the dog just stood there, motionless and expressionless (a very Khmer response to anything). The dog backed off for a second but then came back before deciding to instead go and see what the Lexus had brought. I looked incredulously at the woman who in response just shrieked at me 'ot mutt, dei' (not cut, no?), which on inspection seemed to be true, so I made a noise which I hope expressed my dissatisfaction with the entire affair and walked around the corner to home. I realise that it was only a half-hearted attack; if it really wanted to it could have taken my leg off, and as it was it didn't break the skin (yay, no rabies, although I don't think that Lexus dogs have rabies...), but some pretty decent bruises started to come up pretty fast.
The last week of September was the Pchum Ben holiday. This a big deal: everyone stops work and goes to their familial province, spends a lot of time going to the wat to make offerings to their dead ancestors and to ask them to help them to get money, love, luck, or whatever. Last year over Pchum Ben I went to Sangkhlaburi for a visit, but this year because I had just moved house and wanted to get settled, I decided to hang in Phnom Penh. At the time of the water festival (in November) the provinces empty and Phnom Penh fills up; Pchum Ben is the opposite of this and has the amazing effect of turning the place into a quiet and peaceful city. Admittedly it makes it a bit more challenging to find a place to eat, but oh the serenity! I totally blissed out on sleeping, reading, pottering, and walking around without having to do the usual dance around the many obstacles that usually crowd the footpaths. Pchum Ben this year hasn't delivered much in the way of luck for tens of thousands of Cambodians. The country is experiencing the worst flooding in decades, and at last count, 247 people have lost their lives due to the flooding, since September. It makes Australia's floods in January seem a bit less dramatic.
Cambodia constantly provides opportunities to practice making the most of every day and enjoying what you have while you have it. If you see Fantastic rice crackers in the supermarket – buy them – they might not/probably won't be there the next time you look, or possibly not ever again... Ditto buy the sugar cane juice from the lady on the corner, the roast pork from the one particular old woman at the market, and the restaurant or bar you like/want to check out – go there – it might not be there for long. The same goes for people. The tide of people flowing into and out of my little world has been more on the ebb lately, with three good friends finishing their contracts and returning to Australia. It's funny how such small number of people can create such a hole, but I guess that's the way it is when the circle is small to begin with. But they were here, I thoroughly enjoyed spending time with them, and now they're gone. Like Run DMC says, it's like that, and that's the way it is.
