Cars everywhere...

So I am loitering in the car-park with a coffee, a small huddle of us barang [foreigners] are having our usual venting session about banging our heads against the brick wall that is working here for the Royal Government of Cambodia.

When from around the corner we can hear a low rumbling sound, the conversation pauses, our heads all tilt in unison as we peer at the corner the noise is coming from.

When around said corner hovers into view a procession of new cars.

1, 2, 3, 4 … 9

Nine of them!

All Ford Rangers: extended 4-door cab, pickup back, running boards, chrome bull bars, chrome wing mirrors, chrome door handles, chrome trims here and there. A metallic forest green paint job – as the Khmer would say sa’aart nah [very handsome]

As the nine of them park in a row in the car-park we edge our way a little closer. Through the open door we can see leather seats, still covered with the factory plastic. The CD player is belting out some Khmer pop song through its quadraphonic speakers.

‘’Ah, my cars have arrived’’ a voice behind us says.

Turning we see Mr. xxx with a big grin on his face. Mr. xxx is a big man here at the Ministry.

Further discussion, and discrete enquires from ourselves, reveals that the nine cars in question are for one of the projects that we are trying to get up and running, but have had difficulty in starting due to a hold-up in the funds being released.

This would be the same funding delay that last week stopped a field researcher taking a US$5 taxi ride out into the province to do some research [he was getting sick of funding his research out of his own pocket!]

So, biting my tongue I ask when these cars will be being dispatched out to the five project teams.

‘’Next week, maybe week after. It depends when the five new speedboats turn up’’

???

Having knocked off works slightly early to get to the bank before closing, I cut through the car-park to see a small army of Khmer men polishing and cleaning the new cars, from their dirty and dusty drive all the way from the other side of town, as well as a couple of them taping stencils to the front doors, so that they can spray-paint the bank logo and loan number onto them, a practice that has perplexed me since I arrived here ?