I’m getting Khmer lessons from a very nice teacher called Vibol. It’s such an interesting and fun language! I was first relieved that it didn’t have tones, like so many other Asian languages (for instance Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai…), but now I don’t know if it’s an advantage. When there are tones you can study them and learn them! But here there are no specific tones, just a distinct melody, and Vibol want’s me to learn it. Right now he thinks that I’m singing the phrases in stead for saying them, and that I’m not a very good singer. Right. He also taught me some important distinctions between common words and bad words that sound similar. For instance:
Som kafé kdao moi – I would like a cup of coffee, please
Som kafé kdo moi – I would like a cup of coffee with penis, please
Jui knom pong! – Help me!
Joi knom pong! – Have sex with me!
Double meaning: Sejt sra – fresh meat / prostitute
Funny stuff. I remember talking to a deaf Norwegian girl about the ambiguities of sign language. She said that for just about every common word in sign language, there is a really dirty one that is similar! I think that’s hilarious, they must have a lot of fun. (Come to think of it, how do deaf Cambodians ever get anything done? Except for making small Cambodians. And drinking penis coffee.) It’s so nice to study a language again, I definitely remember the excitement of starting to learn Chinese. Everything is new and you make a fool out of yourself every time you try to pronounce the difficult sounds.
There's a café on the floor beneath my workplace, so I often come here for a coffee and a break. One of the waiters there always smiles when he sees me and says: "Good evening, Sir!" no matter what time it is. I like reading the newspapers, like The Cambodia Daily (with the motto "All the News Without Fear or Favor") or The Phnom Penh Post. Sad and upsetting stories, as so often in newspapers. But they give these little glimpses of people's lives and destinies that are fascinating sometimes. Here are a few, some of them shortened down:
Body pulled out of Stung Treng pond: A fisherman found a woman dead in a pond in Stung Treng city on Friday. Police concluded that no crime had taken place and that she had died of drowning. Her brother said that she suffered from a mental illness and she frequently wandered out of their home, to the point where he often kept her confined in a room. She had been missing for two days when her body was discovered.
Snake smugglers snared but slither away: 22 kilograms of wild snakes were confiscated by the police in Battambang city on Friday. Police said the snakes were packaged in a box labeled “oranges” that was to be sent to Phnom Penh by bus. Yet when the bus driver was loading the box, he felt something moving inside and filed a complaint to the police. Police discovered the wild snakes and freed them into the jungle, but did not arrest the suspects.
Three charged after raid on brothel: The guesthouse owner was arrested along with 11 male sex workers. The owner was charged with the illegal operation of a business, by providing sexual services to gays and old women in Phnom Penh. The deputy prosecutor adds that all 11 sex workers were being sent for education at the youth rehabilitation centre in the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans ans Youth Rehabilitation in Phnom Penh. The director of the municipal Anti-Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Office in the Ministry of Interior says: “This is the first time we have found and cracked down on the illegal operation of sexual service providers for gays and old women in Phnom Penh.”
Drunk attempts rape of girl: A 28-year-old man was arrested after he attempted to rape an underage girl in Banteay Meanchey’s Thmar Pouk district on Friday. Police said that the suspect is a friend of the victim’s brother, and the two went to drink together. The suspect asked to sleep at the home of the victim because he was afraid to face his mother while drunk. He then attempted to rape the victim but she shouted for help, and her brother delivered the suspect to police.
River crash claims three lives: Three family members died during a boat crash on the Mekong River in Kandal province Saturday night. The deceased included a father, mother and their 4-year-old daughter. The family’s 6-year-old son survived the crash. After two days, a neighbor found the boy on the river bank and noticed many pieces of a wooden boat floating on the water. The boy told the police that another boat had crashed into his family’s boat while they were fishing.
Such important stories for the people involved, and for me they're a few lines I'm reading while drinking my coffee. Makes you wonder about their lives. In the international section in Cambodia daily the following headline can be found:
Pope Benedict Finds Jews Not to Blame for Death of Jesus
Well that's always good news.
I was looking through my photos the other day, and found this one, from a trip I went on with some other people this September:
We're descending from Gaustatoppen in Norway, and we're pretty much as far away from my current landscape as I could possibly come. I'm the gracious one in the middle there, trying to get down without slipping and breaking my butt.
