A few weeks ago, Tak’s dad fell unconscious while in our house and was taken straight to hospital. I’m not sure what he was doing in our house but it was lucky that he fell at lunchtime when there were lots of us about. (He has an irritating habit of turning up at our house at all hours, usually drunk, in search of more alcohol – luckily we’ve usually drunk it all already.) This time, though, he hadn’t been drinking and was feeling ill. He is now much better and is at home, having escaped from the hospital in the middle of the night without the doctor’s permission. This was very embarrassing for Tak’s family although the doctor was probably glad to get rid of him – he is a stubborn man and kept removing his various needles and catheter.
The week or so that he spent in hospital did allow me to see more of it than I’d seen before. I had been quite impressed when I’d given blood at the doctors’ professionalism (although the approach is different from in the UK – there you have about four interviews about your travel history, illnesses and sex life, whereas here they just said, ‘Feeling ok? Right, lift your sleeve.’). On the first night I was touched when a man I didn’t know invited me and Tak to join him and his friends for a drink. Then I realised he was on night duty in A&E and in fact all of the doctors were heading to their staff room with several cases of beer. I’ve read blogs from health volunteers about that sort of thing but I think if I hadn’t seen it I wouldn’t have believed it. We didn’t join them, anyway.
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| Pu Choo Open Day |
In the past few weeks we’ve helped more schools organise open days which is good fun, and attended VSO meetings and workshops in Phnom Penh, which at times involved almost all volunteers and staff. It was a really nice opportunity to see everyone again and I remembered what a great group of people there are here. Our ICT group is getting smaller though – Kath was the latest to leave last week, though she may be back at some point next year to continue her support for the Cambodian Midwives Council. At her send-off, there were around forty or fifty people, which shows what a good friend she’s been to many people. There was also a VSO Christmas party the following night which was lots of fun, especially as Gilly was drunk enough to agree to go to DJ Club.
Wedding season has also restarted, which is good because weddings are fun, but bad because it stretches the VSO allowance to the limit – I’ve been told that the minimum we should give now is $12.50, and that is should be closer to $15 or $20. Tak and I went to one in Phnom Penh for one of his close friends Rathna, whom I also know very well, and it was good fun – I especially liked the fact that his wife ended the night in pyjamas. (At the wedding venue, I mean; I didn’t follow them home or anything.)
Tak and I are definitely pushing at the boundaries of acceptable behaviour though – last week at a wedding we drank far too much and then sneaked out with a bottle of brandy each. In fact I was so anxious not to be seen with the brandy that I have a horrible feeling that I forgot to pay my $12.50. I didn’t have the money in my pocket when I got home, so I’m hoping I paid.
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| The VSO Mondulkiri team: Kim, Daniel, Edwin, To, Tak, Torn and me. |
Finally, Come Dine With Me Cambodia has been released (though it takes about four hours to burn each copy so the distribution is quite slow) and has been well received so far, even though as editor I’ve manipulated the footage to make it clear that Ingran and I were robbed when we came third out of four. It’s too big to put on Youtube or anything but I’m making as many copies as I can.
I’m also going to England on Friday. I will be in London until around Tuesday 20th or Wednesday 21st, and then Liverpool until about the 30th, so let me know if you want to meet up.
