June

I got sick not so long ago, and I was of course sure that it was something serious. After my fever passed 40 degrees, I went to the doctor. I took off my shirt, and she looked at me and listened to me and pinched me a little. I was lying there nervous for what she would say. Was it dengue fever? Malaria? Something even worse? “I think you have chicken pox!” she said. “Excuse me?” I asked, trying to sound cool and collected (which isn’t easy when you’re lying on a hospital bed in your bra). I explained to her that I was 100 % sure I had it when I was a child, so she just gave me some paracetamol. That evening I got itchy red spots all over my upper body, and I called my mother for a serious chat. She could inform me that I probably never had them when I was little.

What kind of freak child doesn’t get chicken pox! Did I not socialize with the others? I have distinct memories from kindergarten, that I’m sitting surrounded by friends and drinking mud water from a puddle to impress them. That sounds a bit sad now that we’re grown up, but it felt great then, they all thought I was cool. Maybe they were imaginary? That definitely sounds sad. I know I had a boyfriend there, but we rarely got very close (he had cooties after all). After a few days, the red spots disappeared without having had any of the characteristics of chicken pox, so it probably wasn’t that after all. My friends now call the incident my “dengue pox”, which totally isn’t funny. I didn't exaggerate, it could have been super serious!

I'm sure glad I'm not in kindergarten anymore, where I had to drink from puddles to get friends. The friends I have now just make me eat crickets and silk worms in stead.

Fried insects! Disgusting! But surprisingly fun as well, when you're in a dodgy beer garden with friends.

An interesting fact about the word cooties, is that it’s probably derived from the Malay word kutu, which is a parasitic, biting insect. Creative! In Norwegian the kids just call it jentelus and guttelus, girl lice and boy lice. So now you know how to impress the opposite gender in Norwegian, you’re welcome.


The rainy season has come to Phnom Penh, and the bad weather comes in quickly. This was my view yesterday:

Run for cover! Watch out for the lightning! Not that street, it's flooded! Yes, that one too!

A while back I went back to Boeung Chhouk to visit SCAO. It was strange returning there from my modern apartment in Phnom Penh.

The clothes come in all colours, just like the people.

This was the room I stayed in

It was nice falling asleep to the sound of the women speaking together in low voices, it made me feel safe and far away from home at the same time. In the morning we would wake up to the rooster and the cheerful sound of children’s feet on the wooden floor. My first meeting with this country.

When the border conflict between Cambodia and Thailand flared up, the women listened to the radio the whole night. (It struck me that my grandmother probably did this too, when the Nazis occupied Norway during World War 2.) Tens of thousands of people from both countries fled from the villages along the border during the fighting, but started returning after the tension had eased in May. The most important place they’re fighting over, is the Hindu temple Preah Vihear. It is on Cambodian territory, but Thailand believes it should belong to them.


So, where did the time go? When my schedule got tighter at work, the time to blog simply disappeared. But the good news is that the Let’s do it-project was very successful! I’ve had several workshops with Cambodian university students, and it had been a lot of fun! My topic was “Environmental challenges in Cambodia”, and the students were very active in discussing the different problems. April 23rd we had our big clean up day, and 2400 volunteers gathered in a joint effort to clean the streets of Phnom Penh. Very inspiring! Here is a photo of my group, we were in Tuol kork:

Section D, baby! I was very impressed with the commitment and the enthusiasm the volunteers showed, and they came in all ages and with all backgrounds. We had a lot of coverage in the media, even Xinhua in China wrote about us. The project also had it's own song.