Today was the first working day in the Siem Reap office and I finally got to know my boss Roath from Battambang and Sam, the other intern. They are absolutely adorable, very cool, a bit shy, and both single, which enables them to do stuff with me at night and promises me a lot of not so boring evenings. Battambang really seems like I’d imagine the end of the universe.
So we started work at 8:30, meeting with the deputy district governor, the heads of the offices in Siem Reap and Battambang, the interns and some other people working on different parts of the project. We talked them through all the stuff we want do with them during the next six weeks and took the first break at 10 am. The lunch break usually is from 11:30 to 2:30, which gave us the opportunity to do some more planning and gave us time to search for a newer and nicer guest house. Needless to say that we didn’t find one, although it wasn’t for lack of trying.
We got back together at 2:30, did the last bit of discussion pretty briefly and finished up at 4:30, after having been invited to the birthday party of the district governor’s daughter that evening. So out we went, present hunting. Roath was so nice to give us a lift, otherwise we would have passed out in the blazing sun.
Khmer birthday parties are nothing like German birthday parties at all. True, there are children invited, but they don’t really seem to matter. Usually the head of house invites all his friends from work to the party to do some business. So there they are, all sitting on the ground on straw mats in the courtyard with bare feet, all the women waiting on them, having a beer, discussing their jobs, or telling dirty jokes. It is a lovely atmosphere, children are running around, there’s a gentle breeze going and the DJ plays the hits of the cheesy 80’s, e.g. Everlasting Love or Puppy Love. When the women have brought all the food everybody sits down to have dinner, drink another beer and tell more jokes. After dinner’s the lottery, although I can’t say if it’s a regular on birthday parties. I won a pack of instant noodles. With nightfall comes the disco time and the dancing. Break dance seems to be big here, as well as Hip Hop and Techno, although traditional Khmer music is quite a treat. Mostly young people start dancing in the courtyard, at first a bit shy but then all hell breaks lose and even the little kids know the Jennifer Lopez and Eminem moves. An interesting fact is, that all the dancing is “non touch”, men do not touch females and females do not touch or dance with men, the two sexes dance completely separated from another. Max and me were asked to dance quite a lot and had to show all our hottest moves before people would let us go home.
So we started work at 8:30, meeting with the deputy district governor, the heads of the offices in Siem Reap and Battambang, the interns and some other people working on different parts of the project. We talked them through all the stuff we want do with them during the next six weeks and took the first break at 10 am. The lunch break usually is from 11:30 to 2:30, which gave us the opportunity to do some more planning and gave us time to search for a newer and nicer guest house. Needless to say that we didn’t find one, although it wasn’t for lack of trying.
We got back together at 2:30, did the last bit of discussion pretty briefly and finished up at 4:30, after having been invited to the birthday party of the district governor’s daughter that evening. So out we went, present hunting. Roath was so nice to give us a lift, otherwise we would have passed out in the blazing sun.
Khmer birthday parties are nothing like German birthday parties at all. True, there are children invited, but they don’t really seem to matter. Usually the head of house invites all his friends from work to the party to do some business. So there they are, all sitting on the ground on straw mats in the courtyard with bare feet, all the women waiting on them, having a beer, discussing their jobs, or telling dirty jokes. It is a lovely atmosphere, children are running around, there’s a gentle breeze going and the DJ plays the hits of the cheesy 80’s, e.g. Everlasting Love or Puppy Love. When the women have brought all the food everybody sits down to have dinner, drink another beer and tell more jokes. After dinner’s the lottery, although I can’t say if it’s a regular on birthday parties. I won a pack of instant noodles. With nightfall comes the disco time and the dancing. Break dance seems to be big here, as well as Hip Hop and Techno, although traditional Khmer music is quite a treat. Mostly young people start dancing in the courtyard, at first a bit shy but then all hell breaks lose and even the little kids know the Jennifer Lopez and Eminem moves. An interesting fact is, that all the dancing is “non touch”, men do not touch females and females do not touch or dance with men, the two sexes dance completely separated from another. Max and me were asked to dance quite a lot and had to show all our hottest moves before people would let us go home.
2 comments:
"to do stuff with me at night" sounds slightly ambiguous. Go out eith me in the evening would have been less dingy. Cool idea to write in English. Mentalo salutes you from his balcony. 20 degrees Centigrade, no clouds! Hasch mich, ich bin der Frühling!
it was supposed to sound slightly dodgy ;-) going out is boooooring!
Had to write in English or I would have had to send translated mails to English people. 37 Grad und die Temperaturen steigen.
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