Greetings one and all from the backend of beyond!
Despite my glorious tales of do daring and adventure out here in the wilds of Cambodia, some of you have expressed an interest in what the ordinary day holds for me, your intrepid hero.
I must say that it seems a mundane and, nigh dare I say it, pedestrian request when viewed alongside my battles with rabid halibuts, or my dangerous forays into restaurants run by Johnny Foreigners.
However, as the old showbiz adage goes “give ‘em what they want”
An average day in the life of…
Let us by way of an example look at a typical work day.
06:15
My first alarm clock goes off and I generally turn it off, rollover and ignore it
06:30
Alarm clock number two goes off. This one however is a little more devious. It is out of reach and keeps going off every ten minutes until I drag my sorry carcass out of bed and am forced to belligerently admit that the day has indeed started at this wholly ungodly hour.
07:15
Have taken care of the usual early morning ablutions; shower, shave, shirt et cetera. By this time I am usually sat on my balcony with a cup of coffee watching the early morning sun break over large hordes of screaming children that can be found in the large municipal building opposite – I believe it is called a school or something…
Around this time also Da usually arrives. Now for the uninitiated, Da is my cleaner and cook. A woman of great character and personal bravery, by which I mean she does my laundry as well. After the obligatory early morning hellos, how are you and her signature giggling at my casual and expert use of the K’mai language, she wonders inside [no doubt with baited breath] to see what kind of carnage she has to face this morning.
07:25
Having given up wondering why Da giggles at me every time I try and speak to her in K’mai [she speaks no English] I drive off down the road, heading East on Mao Tse Toung Boulevard to the Norodom crossroads and the National Head Quarters for the Ministry of Fish.
Parking my bike in my reserved VIP parking space [the bit of unbroken tarmac by the mango tree] I wander into the office and turn the air-con on.
07:30
The working day at the Ministry of Fish starts at 07:30. By way of translation, this means that when I arrive at 07:30 that I am the only one in the building.
Between 07:30 and 08:00 people start to wander in, so I spend every two minutes saying ‘good morning’ ‘yes I am fine thank you, how are you’ and all that. Everyone here is so keen to speak/learn/practice English that I am starting to forget the K’mai I have learnt.
Between all of this I usually manage to commandeer the one and only landline in the office for long enough to down load my Emails to the laptop.
08:00
By this time we have normally reached a quorum within the department, by some sort of telepathic, unspoken command, a group of the guys will all stand and shuffle over to my desk
“Mr Darren” they oh so respectfully say, “Have you breakfast already, or not yet?” A few times a week I will tell them that I have not had breakfast yet. At which point they get all excited and happy and say “You come breakfast us” So we all stroll around the corner from the Ministry to ‘The Restaurant With No Name’ now this is not a super hip trendy no name restaurant, with a retro look back to the movies of Sergio Leone, it is just a street corner Khmer restaurant that is so rough and casual that it does not have a name other than ‘that restaurant on the corner over there’
So we get there and I order my usual Khmer breakfast of rice~bacon with chilli sauce, everyone else orders a variety of dishes from baked fish to pork dumpling soup with noodles, et cetera.
During the course of breakfast several topics usually come up in conversation, these are; what did I do at the weekend, what will I do tonight, have I got a Cambodian girlfriend yet, do I need there help in finding one, when should they arrange the wedding for?????? Most of my Khmer colleagues find it very very odd indeed that I am not married with children at my age, they find it even odder that I have been in country for five months and do not have a Khmer girlfriend/fiancé/wife/whatever yet. With this in mind, they often ask me if I want to meet various cousins/nieces/neighbours/etc of theirs. I keep telling them that it is it perfectly normal and fine for me to not be married off, at which point they just nod and say yes – just to be polite – then we all have to go through the same routine again a few days later.
08:30
Having had the usual fight over the bill [I am not allowed to pay] we head back to the office to start our work day in earnest.
The next few hours are taken up with me reviewing reports and updates on the various projects that are currently underway, or with me assisting the staff with their English language skills when writing these reports or proposals. Sometimes I am required to give impromptu sessions on things like report writing skills, or I have to explain what various line items in budgets mean [no you can not buy a car with the money for office equipment]
I quite often attend meetings with various project teams or other departments within the Ministry or with colleagues from other Ministries with areas of overlapping responsibility (Ministry of the Environment, et cetera)
12:00
Lunch. Here my options vary. Mostly I just head back home to have a quick bite, after which I will read for a bit or watch some TV.
On a Fridays’ I will usually go out for lunch, usually for something Western rather than Khmer . There is a large choice of restaurants in Phnom Penh.
Occasionally I may meet up with another VSO for lunch if there are any in town at that time.
Several times a week I will go back into the office early, around 13:30 or 14:00, during which time I can again download any new Emails and send out any I have written
14:30
The work afternoon begins, similar set up to the morning working schedules and practices, only without the trip out for breakfast obviously.
17:00
Time to head home, send any last minutes Emails, et cetera.
17:30
Home, showered and changed. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays Da has my dinner ready for this time as she leaves for the day.
Listen to some music, check out what movies are playing on HBO, generally chill out for an hour or two.
The evenings
Again, much variety here. Ranging from; a quiet night in watching TV or a movie, to going out clubbing with my insane Khmer work colleagues.
The only small part of an evening routine is on Mondays, when I, and any other VSO’s in town, head on over to the Peace Café for the Monday evening British pub quiz night.
That all pretty much covers my working week, Monday to Friday.
Weekends can vary a lot, from travelling out to the provinces to visit other VSO’s, to going out with the Khmers, to going out with the seedy English teachers, to just doing some shopping and chilling out at home. Not that different to ones normal routines back at home. Except of course the 35 to 40 degree heat, continual sunshine, dust, 5 monks on the same moped, karaoke bar on every street corner and the fact that Tarmac seems to be very transitional here.
Well, with that out of the way, I shall get back to my reports of Fish and will update you all soon on the events of National Fish Day !?!!?
Ciao
D
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