I had a busy time yesterday. While I was in Canada, my iron was passed on to people using the apartment below mine. Now I can't get it back as people are still renting the unit. I've wanted to buy my own but Cina wouldn't have it; she said it was her responsibility as landlord. Just before I had breakfast she phoned to say she was off shopping with Vuth and I should join her. We went to an appliance place and got the iron plus a toaster as mine is also downstairs. We left the shop and headed home and then Cina said she wanted to go back because she'd seen a small fridge she thought would be good in her husband's office. We ended up buying the fridge plus a gadget that dispenses hot water. Pretty well everything here is from China so I was glad to see my toaster was from Thailand. Cina's quite a shopper; when we were buying the appliances she examined the watts/volts to see how much energy they used.
I thought that was my job done but when I said I was heading home I was asked if I'd go home with them so I could show Vuth how to operate the hot water gadget. Vuth's worse than I am with this kind of thing so he always makes me feel good about my own capabilities. While I was with him he made a cup of tea with the new gadget; it was tea from North Korea. I must be a rarity - a Western who has sampled tea from Pyongyang. I was impressed in that it came in neat pouches complete with bar codes. There was a date on the package and I hoped it wasn't the expiry date.
That led to having lunch with the family. I'm always amazed how they cook a meal for the 21 people in the building, which includes family, their own helpers and the staff in the travel office they own. Today there were six cooked dishes on the table plus a salad and three kinds of fruit. It's all cooked on a two ringed burner and there's no microwave. That means some of the dishes end up on the cool side but this is something that doesn't bother anyone here. Ponleu (9) joined us. He's just had four baby teeth removed. I told him to put the teeth under his pillow for the tooth fairy but he told me he'd tried it and it didn't work. I said he had to talk to the tooth fairy to make sure she came. "How can I do that when I don't know her number?" he said. I'm hoping Vuth left some money for the lad as I made a big deal of the fairy.
I left their home with two of the staff who come for a one hour conversational English class. Even though it's their lunch break they don't mind being with me and it's nice talking to them as I chat about our lives. When they left, I went to a coffee shop to meet Thornin; he helps me with the dental programmes and we met to talk about our needs for the paper work which we'll have to start before too long. He's always helping me so I decided to take him and Vuth out for dinner to a new Indian restaurant that's opened just five minutes away. Cambodia's amazing in that we can find everything we need within a ten minute walk from the apartment. We had pakoras (onion dipped in batter and deep fried), samosas, a couple of curries, butter naan, rice and a dessert, all for the princely sum of $25. There was so much food we took home enough for two more people.
Oudom (12) pestered me in the evening and I said something like, "For God's sake." He couldn't figure out, as a Buddhist, why I'd brought God into it. For six years he was at an English medium school and he was frequently taught by teachers who had a Christian missionary attitude in the classroom. He continued:
"I often pray to Jesus if I'm having a problem in school."
"What sort of problems?"
"Well, if I'm worried about an exam or if I forget my homework."
"What do you pray for?"
"I ask Jesus to make my teacher sick or I ask him to hit my teacher on the head so he forgets things. I think Jesus gets mad with me because he only hears me when I'm in trouble."
It's interesting how a 12 year old Buddhist lad has got the Christian faith figured out.
Today was yet another public holiday. I think we've had one a week for the last 3 weeks. This one was for the coronation of the previous king who has been dead for a while. It sounds totally whacky to me but the locals love a celebration and especially last night's fireworks.
