Though it’s a week or so overdue, Happy Lunar New Year, may this Year of the Tiger be a prosperous one for us all. We spent the holiday in Cambodia, mainly in Kep and Kampot. On the way to the airport in HCMC the taxi driver was a cheery fellow. He was very proud to tell me about his two children and wished me a happy new year several times.
The taxi driver who picked me up at Phnom Penh airport told me about the corrupt government, 50% increases in electricity prices while many are still living on a dollar a day, and rigged elections. I asked about his family. He told me both his parents had been killed by the Khmer Rouge. Welcome to Cambodia. The people are so open and friendly, small towns have a certain charm, and of course there are the temples and the feeling created by the many saffron robed monks serenely going about their business. But you see things, you get information that you don’t know what to do with when you’re in this country.
In Kampot we hired a couple of rusty old bikes from a guesthouse and hooned around this atmospheric riverside town, full of crumbling colonial shop houses. One day we followed a red dusty path that ran alongside the river and found ourselves passing through a Cham Muslim community. Most people were hanging out the front of their wooden stilted houses. The women were colourfully dressed, some with headscarves, and the kids gave us cheeky hellos as we cycled by.
The path came to an end where a couple of more substantial looking houses blocked its way, so we took a rest by the river. After a couple of minutes, a pretty young girl emerged from one of the houses. She wore an ankle length batik skirt like I’d seen on some of the other women. She was very happy to see us and we started chatting in English, using sign language or drawing in the sand when we couldn’t understand each other. She was 22 and had a 1 year old daughter. Her name was Siri, or something similar. Khmer has a different script and she was unsure how her name would translate into English letters. She’d studied a little English and was very keen to know and practise more. She also wanted to take us out on her boat, a long and narrow wooden vessel anchored a few metres away, but we declined the offer. I admired her skirt and we established through drawing pictures of sewing machines and actions that she’d made it. She offered to make me one and I thought why not. After we agreed to come back tomorrow, she skipped away with the 3 dollars I had given her.
Andrew was doubtful, but I was pretty sure she would make the skirt, and either way I wanted to satisfy my curiousity. So we decided not to take the day trip to Bokor Mountain that every one in town was pushing on us, and cycled out to see Siri again the next day. Approaching the buildings at the end of the path there was no sign of her. There was another group of people sitting around who didn’t seem so friendly as we walked towards them. Then she emerged from another house and beckoned us over with much enthusiasm. She lived in a one room brick house, with very little furniture except a large bed, but it was new and clean with a tiled floor. One corner was curtained off and she directed me there to try on the skirt. It was red, although I’d asked for the same black fabric as hers. The fullness and length didn’t suit me at all, not like it did on her petite frame, but I didn’t mind too much. I offered her another dollar as we agreed, but she wouldn’t take it. With some gestures and a few words she asked us to walk with her to the riverside beach behind her house.
We stood in the shallow water to cool off. It offered some relief, though the early afternoon sun still blasted us. She wanted me to teach her more English and in turn she could teach me Khmer. She started drilling me with the Khmer words for the days of the week. I mangled my way through the rolling r’s and strange consonant sounds. Her little brother, probably about 8 years old, who had tagged along, scooped up slate coloured clay from the river bed and started throwing little blobs of it at Siri’s daughter. The little girl was not bothered. Siri asked me to sing an English song, my mind was blank, so she sang a made up song which was mostly just ‘I love you’ repeated many times.
I have a photo of us standing by the water. She has her arms wrapped tightly around me and is grinning broadly. Her little girl is standing at her legs looking confused, which was similar to my feelings at that time.
I asked about her husband, she motioned to the house and didn’t attempt to say anything else. She had a spark. I sensed that she was brimming with a burgeoning intelligence, and a curiosity about the world beyond her. But she was living in a small community on the outskirts of a small town in one of the poorest and most damaged countries in the world. Most of all I internally winced at her loneliness. She was reaching out for a friend. And there I was, thinking before this that I would pick up my skirt, say a few kind words and be on my way. Just another funny adventure on my travels, a story to tell as I showed people my souvenir.
She started saying things about meeting the next day. I said I was going to Kep. ‘I will go to Kep too!’ she cried. ‘Later I will come to your hotel!’ The sun was beating down. I thought about our hotel room with air-conditioning and a book I was keen to finish. It was time to extract ourselves from this situation. She offered us crabs for lunch. We patted our stomachs and said we’d already eaten. At least that was true.
We cycled back through the stilted houses. I knew I couldn’t stay but I churned with guilt about leaving.
Today, back in HCMC, I bought a book for to study English with. I will send it, with that photo of the two of us, to the guesthouse we stayed at in town. Hopefully it will find its way to her.
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