On Sunday evening I offered to take Vuth’s boys to watch him play football. Only Ponleu wanted to go - the other two wanted to play games - video games. We were supposed to be there in time to start but there was another game going on and it had only just started. About 20 years ago I watched a boys’ game in the UK and I’ve never watched a game since. This time I had to watch almost all of this game, plus Vuth’s game. After his game ended the team had a farewell party as it was the last game of the season. While that was going on, there was another football game in progress and so, on one evening, I managed to see one entire game and parts of two games. If it’s 20 years since I last saw a game, I’m hoping I won’t have to repeat the process.
I always make notes of things that are of interest to me, to include them in the blog. Recently, I’ve had so much to write about I’ve put off writing about other things. As I said, they are important to me, as memories of my daily life, and so you have to put up with the next few minutes as I reminisce.
On Friday I had Phearak and Srun over for their English class. Instead of going down four flights of stairs I decided to have a basket and rope system. It worked well. I sent my keys down and the lads let themselves in. We had our customary hour together and then they left, taking the keys with them. They stood in the alley and I let the basket down. They waved to take it up, which I did, thinking the keys were in it. Then they waved for me to take the basket down as they still had the keys. Down it went and then they waved for it to go up again. This kept going on, with the basket going up and down, without the keys. I then found out that the basket was landing on the balcony below mine so they were waving for it to go up and over the balcony. It reminded me of that radio vignette about a bucket going up and down and getting nowhere; I think it was Victor Borge or another of those famous American comedians, in the days when comedians made us laugh.
Here’s a joke from Ponleu (9). Why isn’t it wise to play cards in the jungle? Because there are a lot of cheetahs.
Do people ever make comments about how you look or dress? Here in Cambodia it happens to me all the time from the young folk. I’ve been told my arms are a bit wobby, like gelatine. Samnang asked if I’d like some hair gel as mine looked a mess. He plays a lot of football and prides himself on his physical anatomy. “Feel my calf”, he said. “Yours is soft and mine is solid.” Ponleu said, “What are those things growing out of your eyes. I realised he was talking about eyelashes. “Yours make you look like a girl”, he said. I kind of think that’s a compliment.
At the engagement I asked a friend if she had had an engagement party. She laughed and said he was so poor he could only bring 2 bags of oranges and they we in a plastic bag and not on a plate.
Oudom (12) said there are only two things he likes about Cambodia - the people and the fact that he doesn’t have to go into the army. I’d been frustrated because I’d bought plastic suction hooks to go on my tiled wall but they kept falling off. He said, “Put them in boiled water and it revitalises them.” I did and it worked! I’ve no idea why he searches out these things at his young age.
