Ghost Island

The tragedy at Koh Pich (Diamond Island) last month, where 351 people—most from the provinces—died during the final days of the city's Water Festival, is pretty staggering, considering that the area was intended to celebrate of Cambodia's newfound status as a "developing" nation. But all that is gone now, at least temporarily, and the island's got a new nickname: Ghost Island. 

It's apt, too: chuck full of all the accoutrements of "fun," the place is bright, cheery. forward-looking—and almost completely deserted.

Of course, there are other abandoned locales but I'm a sucker for unfun amusement parks.

Disappearing Boeung Kak, Indeed

Went on a little reconnoissance mission today to check the status of the lake I wrote about here and elsewhere. There isn't much left of it, true.

There's evidence everywhere that people left in a bit of a hurry.

This seems to be someone's bathroom floor. Maybe kitchen.

And these little guys, of course, used to be a little bit closer to the water. They're now about thirty yards back from the shoreline.

I'm told there are about 18 families who've refused to leave thus far. 

. . . and over on the other side of the city, this li'l bugger's dredging up sand from the river to fill in Boeung Kak. 

And so it goes.

Camb(l)o(g)dia Reporters Wanted!

Hey Camb(l)o(g)dia Readers!

You may have noticed the "Donate" button to the right of where I am typing right now, which is part of a new initiative designed to pay Khmer women writers for stories. That's right: I want to pay you to blog for me.

Now, I am also accepting guest posts from others around the world, directly related, or not, to the issues we cover here on Camb(l)o(g)dia: Cambodian-related matters, women's rights, human rights, media analysis, popular culture, South East Asia, and the ever-hilarious love life of Anne Elizabeth Moore.

So the point is, want to write for me? Send your idea or story to artshowheckyeah (at) gmail (dot) com, and we can talk about it! (Submitted stories on the ever-hilarious love life of Anne Elizabeth Moore will not be accepted. That's my beat.)

Now, why am I only paying Khmer women for stories? Here's why, from my Truthout story of a few years ago, Women Are Diamonds:

Recent statistics indicate that 83 percent of Cambodian women are either unpaid or self-employed, as in marketplace shopkeepers. Of employed women in the country, 1.4 percent worked in the garment industry in 1998 and 5.5 percent in 2004. . . . Ninety percent of the garment factory workers are women, and most are untrained (only in the last few years have significant improvements brought about greater educational opportunities and higher literacy rates for women). Advancement opportunities, however, are nil, even for the 10 percent of male laborers—most management positions are held by foreigners.

In the US, women still make something like 72 cents per average, compared to each dollar a man makes. That's inequity. But in a nation that relies heavily on the work of garment laborers, the third largest industry in the country, and even more heavily on tourism—which I'm sorry we have to acknowledge sex tourism, another industry largely supported by the labor of women, is an unofficial part—we can't claim inequity. We can't even claim disparity. In fact, those of us on the outside should probably just stop talking about it at all, and start offering solutions.

So here's my solution: I'm raising some money, mainly from independent media-making friends in the US, who are aware that spaces for clear and thoughtful writing that do not allow advertising are important to a developing culture and nation. If you are a Khmer woman, and want to get paid a little bit to write something here, send your ideas or stories to artshowheckyeah (at) gmail (dot) com. If you are anyone else, and just want to support this project, you can send your ideas or stories to artshowheckyeah (at) gmail (dot) com too.

Thanks for reading, and for forwarding on to your interested friends!

Beer Lao

I’m writing this post at one of my favorite rooftop, open-air spots, having spent the last 40 minutes meditating in a breezy temple, mostly on the subject of: how cute my cats are. I’ve ordered a crepe, because it sounds good, although I passed up some amazing naan to come here so maybe I’m just in a bread mood, and drinking a strawberry passionfruit shake and Beer Lao. I’m thinking to myself: if anyone ever has to try to convince me to do something, they should probably know it’s going to be a LOT easier if they hand me a strawberry passionfruit shake first. Or are wearing strawberry passionfruit cologne. Which if it exists, I am totally buying. I’m also thinking: I wonder if my ride will show up later. And: man, sex tourism sucks.

I’m pretty much right above the spot where Chea Vichea was killed. I could spit on it, if that were an appropriate reaction. And I’m about to read a Stephen King novel. Whom by the way I hate, but my dedication to finding relevant literature en route through this winter’s journey has left me in a bit of a lurch, reading-wise.

What my cats do when I'm not around

They wrap each other up in meat-themed wrapping paper and take turns playing present.

This is All-Girl Metal Band, in bacon paper set against a field of green. Doesn't it bring out her eyes?

This is Thurber. He's really busy right now, so he doesn't have a lot of time for this.

Images by Jennifer Lassiter.

Mr. Lee reunion party

It might not surprise you very much that the pool I chose to frequent when I chose to frequent a pool that one time of yesterday was selected not so much because of the pool itself, which is nice and all, but because one of my very favorite people in Cambodia hangs out there, and I did not have his phone number, and I wanted to see him. He is sort of a tuk-tuk driver, in that he drives a tuk tuk, but sort of a friend, in that we go out and drink beers and talk about his cute family, who I think is great, and he is sort of a tour guide, in that he tells me things about the country that no one else will express about, and he is sort of also a collaborator in that he brings me to places no one would bring a tourist too and helps me construct elaborate stories about why I am there, and then even does the nearly unbelievably wonderful thing of feigning a larger language problem than really there is when one of us gets trapped by one of these stories. Mr. Lee.

But. But. And on the related issue of my hilarious love life: I knew Mr. Lee would ask about my former partner, even though he did not know (or care) how to pronounce his name, who I made the terrible mistake of bringing here a year ago. This made me nervous. It had been assumed we were married. And in the popular Cambodian comprehension of the concept, we were. Now, this is a relationship it's best to say little to nothing about, save that it was among the inspirations for ripping apart a pair of jeans with my bare hands in Germany over the course of three weeks. So I didn't know how I would react when asked directly about it. But I thought it might be, well, a scaled-back version of a tourist asking point blank about a local's time in the Pol Pot years: Shitty.

Yet when I strolled by the tuk tuk, interrupting Mr. Lee's nap, he sat bolt upright and said, "Anne!" I was so excited I jumped up and down and then hugged him, although this was probably totally inappropriate and hopefully wouldn't get him in trouble with his wife or teased too much by the other tuk-tuk drivers.

"You have same phone number?" he asked after some catching up. It is Mr. Lee's specialty as a tuk-tuk driver not to receive calls when you are ready to go somewhere, but to place them if he happens to be free and up for driving you around. It is not convenient, but it is awesome.

However, as close readers of this blog will recall, I have never before had a Cambodian phone number. The conversation was straying into dangerous territory. I gave him my new phone number, asked about his wife and son. The former was still the same, still home from the factories. The latter had just entered kindergarten.

"And what about your frien'?" he asked.

I looked blankly at him. Then tilted my head. "You know," I said. "He was not a good person."

He looked at me for a second, during which I probably just held his gaze.

Then he threw back his head and laughed. "I think like this, too," he finally said. Khmenglish for: I agree. Khmenglish for: I didn't want to say anything at the time, but. Khmenglish for: it was a long time ago. This is Cambodia. People survive here.

And then he asked if I wanted to go somewhere. Which I did.

"I make people buy things."

Met a super sexy Cambridge man by the pool the other day—you know, on the day I spent by the pool—and we got to chatting, as I tend to do with super sexy young men from Cambridge. It's "my thing" that "I do."

Here are the primary things I express concern about in such situations:

• Where he is from.
• What he is doing here in general.
• What he spent the previous night doing and whether or not this grosses me out or appears to be a lie.
• What he does for a living and whether or not this grosses me out either.

Also, less overtly:

• If he is talking to me because he believes I am an idiot, new in town, or just here for the party scene, which happens a lot more often than you would think, even with the glasses, I think because I am female and friendly, and in fact I was extra on my guard because a few hours earlier I had had exactly that kind of conversation with another significantly less sexy young man who turned out not to be from Cambridge, first mistake on my part, who kept trying to tell me things about Phnom Penh, second mistake on his. For the record, I will listen to you tell me about Phnom Penh, a city I've obsessed over for three years, if you are Khmer and/or grew up here. But not if you are from New Zealand, teach English, and wear Zubaz. (OK: real first mistake on my part. Never respond to the guy wearing Zubaz.)

Anyway, my Cambridge friend and I never got to the part about whether or not I had any more, or less, experience here than he did or any more, or less, rights to pontificate about what the city is like. Actually, like any good conversation, we just started cracking jokes. 

The best one was when I asked what he did, like, for a job. 

"I make people buy things they don't need," he said in all seriousness. I was confused, because to me this is not a job so much as it is a condition of being in late capitalist Southeast Asia. I asked for clarification, in terms of what it might say on a business card.

"I'm in advertising."

And I literally laughed harder than I had in months.

The end.

The moments worth all the ones in between

Roadies hauling stuff in for the Messenger Band's Christmas Day performance, 2010. 

The fancified chairs used for major celebrations and, apparently, rock concerts

The Messenger Band sings about HIV and AIDS prevention.

Surprise trans people dance performance.

Fashion show.

Messenger Band fan.

I am doing whatever this says I am doing

Won't you come join me?

"Christ is becoming more popular here."

This is my Christmas Tree.

Faithful readers of this blog for over the last three years—those that do not live in or travel to Cambodia, at least—will be delighted to receive the update to this post from Christmas Eve 2007, wherein I stated:

Seemingly, Christmas has been a long time coming to Phnom Penh, and [the holiday seems] not so much intended to celebrate all that stuff we claim to be behind the holiday spirit—the Jesus, the manger, the wise men—but is in fact a celebration of everything that’s been translated into Khmer from across the ocean, and frankly what’s made it this far is: selling stuff.

I waxed vaguely poetic in the short post about the celebration of the holiday known as Happy Merry Christmas, which is largely centered around the Christmas Sale, or more specifically centered around the decoration of stores and shopkeepers with red-and-white adornments, trees, and reflective ribbons. In the last three years, the Cambodia Daily reports today, (in a story entitled "Christmas has arrived," natch—Chenh Sokhorng and Philip Heijmans, The Cambodia Daily Weekend, p. 4) the notion seems to have taken hold.

The International Books Center on Monivong Boulevard has seen a 20 to 30 percent increase in sales over the holiday, the story reports. Manager Sok Sarith told the paper, "In our first year of selling Christmas trees, we have sold more than 100. . . people are enjoying being together, decorating together, and it makes the kids happy." (No first-hand reports on what variety of trees are being used for decoration yet, I'm sorry to say. I'll happily update you when I see them myself.)

An all-Christmas shop has even popped up, inside a bar, and both foreigners and locals are frequenting the place in the low-hundreds, the proprietress Sor Srey claims.

The holiday "is becoming more and more popular each year," Ms. Srey added.

Other shopkeepers—those making use of Santa hats in particular—are claiming record profits. Double to triple the average, even. A nail salon that specializes in Christmas designs is especially popular, the shopkeeper explains, "among teenagers. . . . The girls talk about wanting to get a gift from certain boys."

"It is a good sign the financial crisis is ending," Mr. Sarith tells the paper. "People are more willing to spend."

[A giant cockroach measuring at least two inches long just jumped on me. FYI.]

In other words, it's all good news on the economic front, for a country that's seen rampant development in the same past three years, but there's not a lot of talk about the religious concerns that may underpin a Buddhist nation embracing a Christian holiday.

That's because in Cambodia, there aren't any.

"I don't know what it means, or why it is celebrated," one teenager in the story is quoted as saying. "I just know that we enjoy giving and exchanging gifts with one another."

"On Christmas," one young man asked me yesterday, "is it the holiday where a boy and a girl say to each other, 'I love you?' " He was clearly confusing it with Valentine's Day. Which also has a red theme, is rooted in consumerism, and has come to the country in the past three years.

But embracing a symbol stripped of meaning still has benefits for some. Even on top of the economic flurry it's causing in Southeast Asia, missionaries desperate to stake claim in the region are able to cry success.

The Phnom Penh President of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints Kong Saphan is particularly thrilled, and expects his nativity play will bring in 400 or 500 Cambodian Christians. In addition to the performance of Jesus' birth scene, the group will "prepare a feast and give gifts," Saphan says. The free food and presents aren't really the point, though, he claims. Attendance at the festival "shows that Christ is becoming more popular here."

Taxing Cambodia

My Austrian banking friend asked recently about taxes in Cambodia, and I only knew enough to say at the time, "I'm not so sure about that." It's something that's never come up in any conversation I've ever had, which either means it doesn't exist and no one's ever heard about it, it's too unpleasant to discuss, or it is so common, like corruption, that there is no reason whatsoever to address it. An interesting piece in the Cambodia Daily today cleared the matter up, however ("Gov't says tax collection increased in 2010," Simon Marks, Dec. 25-26, p. 15): "The ability of the government to collect taxes is improving," says Hang Chuon Naron, secretary of state at the Ministry of Finance.

Tax revenues this year pulled in about $4,841 billion Riel, or about $1.21 billion USD between January and September, about thirty percent of which will go to agriculture, rural development, water resources, health and eduction. The remainder will go to defense and domestic and foreign affairs. Tax revenues amount to around 11% of the GDP compared to around 25% for Thailand and Vietnam. Officials interviewed claim the gap is due to corruption.

One perk for voluntary compliance with tax law (enforcement is not terribly strong, the article claims, and I can believe) is a desire to improve corporate governance, which itself is part of an initiative to secure a listing in the upcoming Cambodian stock market.

January 6: Garment Work at Meta-House

My project Garment Work (2010), probably the closest thing I can call a "major work" without secretly laughing about it inside, will be displayed at Meta-House January 6-20, 2011. A meditation on capitalism, integrity, loss, and perseverance, Garment Work is an instillation that distills a 34 hour and 36 minute performance I conducted this summer, wherein I ripped apart a pair of jeans with my bare hands over a period of three weeks. The exhibition includes a ten-hour video of my performance, the constituent elements of a single pair of German-manufactured jeans, and a Tagebuch, kept in German, that references the Baumwollspinnerei's Brigadebucher, regular diaries of sociopolitical life at the textile mill under the GDR. This is the second world premiere of this work, ever, although it has yet to be shown in the US. Oops.

For a bit of the play-by-play from the course of doing the project this summer, you may be interested in perusing the archives of Democracy Guest List. See: I don't know what to do with myself, but I know I can take apart this pair of jeans; Garment Work, day six; I am really doing this; Garment Work, day eleven; and jeans before the invention of weaving.

My friend Lee Sandlin said it was "like the mashed potatoes scene in Close Encounters, but with hipper politics," a real-live former film critic called it a "pants disaster blockbuster," and someone else I know just called it "long." This was in reference to the preview version above; she was not even aware there was a ten-hour version, 60 times the length of the one she had not been able to watch the entirety of.

And if that doesn't get you to Phnom Penh in a couple weeks, I don't know what will!

I just wanted you to know that this existed

From a bathroom in a restaurant along Sisowath Quay.

Bok Knear II

Awoke this Christmas Eve to a major accident out on one of the streets known as 271: two motos, a tuk-tuk, and an auto, all sort of mangled together in no sort of sensical pattern, no injuries. Twenty spectators. No assistance offered anyone, really, although an angry man emerged eventually to start ordering people around, demanding the move this or that moto aside. It's interesting how people wear their authority here. He was clearly middle class: black pants, laced shoes, greased hair. The majority of the spectators were employees of some around-the-corner enterprise: red uniforms, eager faces. Others were moms. Nothing better to do than gawk.

The crash had been loud, but not resounding. More like if an elephant fell off a bed than if he crashed through the floor doing so. My first thought was: That could have been me.

Because yesterday emerged a problem with my moto. Sort of an emotional problem, really, if you think about it: my moto's brakes started going--they became, quite suddenly, harder and harder to press, which if you drive things for a long time you come to recognize as having broken through some sort of pad to the bone of the mechanism underneath--and that's when the problem happened. I thought: I don't think I trust you, machine.

Now, keep in mind, driving a moto in Cambodia is not like driving one in the north woods of Minnesota where I grew up. It's more like driving one the wrong way on a carousel when you are super super high. Everything rushing at you, little sense of order (although this has improved substantially over the last three years). And, when you are renting from a semi-reputable dealer who requires your passport as a down payment: the growing sense that the machine holding you up against these forces could crumble at any moment.

So I returned the moto. To be fair, I requested a significant bit of inspection and repair first, none of which were forthcoming. (After all, I had refused to leave my passport, leaving the cash deposit as noted below, and they wouldn't be held liable in case I died anyway. They had absolutely nothing to gain except peace of mind from ensuring I had a safe vehicle.) I looked at their other vehicles, none of which seemed any more (or for that matter, less) satisfactory. I demanded my money back. The end.

Which leaves me somewhat stranded out here in the street 271 district of Phnom Penh, but, since the water's been off for two days, it's the holiday known as Happy Merry Christmas, and the State Department has backed my support of local business, I'm going to take a massage break at a place with a shower and check into a hotel with a pool for the night. Also because Jesus was awesome.

Choosing a cell phone

After three years being in and out of this country I have finally purchased a Cambodian cell phone under the advisement of a very cute Cambodian business major, who carefully checked over every potential new and used phone on my behalf before handing the worthy off to me. (The unworthy he just handed back to the proprietress. Even if I expressed a desire to see them anyway.) Once chosen, my brand new phone (and I could name the brand, except we also have it in the states, and I don’t do that) required a telephone number, at which my point my business major friend said to me, Which cell-phone company you like? And I named the most annoying one I could think of.

Beeline.

Then I was handed a list of numbers. This was an equally fungible decision. My business major friend turned to me: Which number is lucky for you? And I chose one.

Sadly I turned out to be wrong: This number was someone else’s already, so not lucky for me in any way. I chose a different one. I’m not entirely sure why, but certain numbers were more expensive than others, ranging in price from one to seven dollars. Lucky for me is only spending one dollar on a phone number though.

Then, point being, I filled up the card under a totally different system of number-choosing (five or ten dollars?) and then I had a Cambodian cell phone.

And, a few hours later, when I was asked for my Cambodian cell phone number, the young man looked at it and said, Oh! You like Beeline too?

You can guess that

My favorite television show is an ILO-backed Better Factories Cambodia production, At the Factory Gate, which yesterday featured a fantastic in-depth story about a woman misinformed of her rights to a certain pay scale, and who, angered by this, becomes embroiled in a threat to strike alongside her various supporters. A factory manager (male, of course, lone among the women strikers, all prepped to demand their rights, which I cannot read because they are not dubbed into English on the bottom of the screen like the dialogue is) appears to explain that this strike is illegal, and that while our primary figure does have rights, these are not among them, and so in this case it would be best for her to rely on the kindness of the factory owners for her to achieve her goals, which are to send as much money as possible back to her family, whom she loves very much. The delightful narrative ends with our antiheroin declaring her accrued knowledge in the area of her not having as many rights as she was prepared to demand and giving up the strike, convincing her sisters to do the same; the factory, for its part, acknowledges they have erred in explaining to her the exact amount of pay she would be receiving, and giving her the amount she thought she was getting—the amount she was prepared to strike for. The real winner is our manager, who gets to represent the factory overlords and is, in the end, beloved by the gaggle of women.

Besides it being extremely awesome, I feel very ambivalently about this program. While any television show entirely devoted to labor issues is, of course INSANELY COOL, the obvious drawbacks, of it being used as a structure for ensuring an idealized conformity in this controlled space, is troubling. Certainly, knowing the law is important. Do not get me wrong. But equally important could be: presenting the law as open to democratic process. As malleable when unjust.

But I can’t find it right now. Right now what is on is a fantastic fictionalized Thai story about a boy who really, really, really loves his king. Twenty minutes have elapsed of this program so far, and all I have learned is that he is a musician, a photographer, the king, and so amazingly inspirational to this boy, his family, and by extension, his country, that the program simply must come to an end. To be followed by another program with a remarkably similar theme. Really? Maybe I am watching it wrong. Or maybe Thai TV really is all about that.

This program too, ends, so I switch around to the Cambodian channel where you text messages in to the TV and they appear, but the Cambodian version is not as dirty as the German version, and so everyone writes in: Hi! I need friend! You like to me? I wish you good health! Success in everything! I love you. SMS to me?

Seckon reunion

Nice reunion today with Fleur and Seckon, the artist team behind the Rubbish Project, who I first mentioned on this blog here. You can't see in the picture that when I first met Seckon, he was wearing a towel. Luckily I covered the moment in exquisite detail in his fancy-pants art catalogue, where you can read about it to your heart's content.

But that first meeting was a year ago, and since then Seckon's career has taken off handily. He was packing up a new batch of paintings and collages, in fact, for a new Rossi Rossi show in Singapore in January.

I am quite happy to meet you again, he told me. His mom had grasped my hand warmly when I came in. It was clear, to me at least, that she remembered me. Fondly. That was one year ago. He said. Long time.

But I did not dress. He said. He was wearing the same towel.

Oh Seckon, I said. I am not someone to dress for.

If you haven't seen them yet, Seckon's final days at his studio on Boeung Kak lake, a story I first covered last spring, were captured here.

Something is happening

Something happens in Phnom Penh when the sun starts to set, and I wonder if it happens everywhere and I have just never noticed it before? It gets very peaceful, like deeeeeeep in the gut, but people become agitated to be home or to find something or get something done. They are good planners though so it is only for the first half of the sunset that people are really out and about. By the time the sun is, technically, setting—as it becomes more dark than it was, earlier, light—most people are home cooking dinner and playing with their kids or doing their laundry. I don’t know.

But today happened to be a particular kind of sunset, that of the winter solstice, a season that loses all negative connotation here. And then there is the eclipse. This happened yesterday, technically—I completely missed it—but right now much of my Twitter stream in the US is madly enthused over the whole thing. Man, here that shit is just old hat by now.

And of course I was driving Amara II, the slightly beefed up version of Amara, the Honda scooter I used to drive. She is heavier-set than the seafoam version, but apparently quite impressive to the staff here at the semi-guest house where I stay, who ask such things as, Where is your friend who drive it? 

So in the evening, as the sun began to set, it was a bit of a struggle to stay on the bike, in the dwindling light and the increasing agitation, but it all seems to be OK now.

Twenty dollar, it go away.

Great strides have been made in the Department of Anne Getting Her Shit Together, in all three sub-areas of eating, sleeping, and transportationing, not to mention toilet-paper access, which has improved by leaps and bounds since we last spoke. The big news here is Amara II, a feat accomplished through a down payment of no less than a quarter of my stipend money, whose presence in my life thus far has caused some stress. The long and short of it is, Amara II is a Honda Wave series. A bit of a beater bike, if you ask me. But a quick lesson in running the thing in Khmer and no problem!

Except of course there really was a problem. The problem was that I looked up when the policeman was looking for someone to pull over and there I was. If I were slightly more paranoid, I might speculate that he picked me out of the crowd. And so this conversation ensued:

POLICEMAN: Why you stop at corner?

ME: Because I needed to consult my map.

POLICEMAN: Speak Khmer?

ME: Khnyom Rien Khmer, but not really, no.

POLICEMAN: Problem is, Ticket.

ME: For stopping at the corner to read my map?

POLICEMAN: No. Twenty.

ME: Twenty what?

POLICEMAN: Where you from?

ME: Chicago.

POLICEMAN: ID.

ME: OK. [I hand him my driver's license. He doesn't really look at it.]

POLICEMAN: Where you from?

ME: Chicago. [I point to it on the license he is not looking at.]

POLICEMAN: Twenty dollar.

ME: Can I get a receipt?

POLICEMAN: No receipt. No ticket. Twenty dollar, it go away.

ME: Wow. Really? [I hand him $20.] Just, wow.

The policeman then proceeds to direct traffic out of my way so I can safely enter the lane again.

Try this at home!

Blue Lady Blog

I can not tell you how thrilled I am to stumble across Kounila Keo's Blue Lady Blog, where you can find brilliant gems like this:

The thing to notice in Washington DC was that from place to place, there are very specific and easy-to-understand signs for drivers and passengers, so that these people would not get mixed-up. Apart from road signs, I observe that houses were organized with correct numbers in which 26 is close to 27. In Cambodia, especially the Capital Phnom Penh, don’t expect to find house number 26 close to 27.

And like this:

Asian society views dark or black skin as a sign of inferiority or low social status, while white skin suggests wealth, beauty and high social standing. It is not surprising that so many people in Asia want lighter skin even if it is not their natural tone.

Such prejudice prevails in many parts of the world, and particularly in Cambodia, where it holds the country back from an important step in social progress.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I think we can call this development in Cambodia.

What yesterday reminded me of

So there is a new feminist artists' group starting here in Phnom Penh, and they have very kindly sought me out and asked me to come talk to them. They'd like to hear about my work, and see images maybe, and ask me a few questions.

Also, they would like me to tell them what feminism is.

Hopefully, the email intended to indicate that I should tell them what I think feminism is, but one can never be too sure. Ever.

Alles Roger in Kambodscha

This phrase makes significantly more sense if, well, you both speak German and then sort of over-pronounce "Roger" a little bit to rhyme with "Kambodscha", but the basic gist is, everything's OK in Cambodia, which becomes even more confusing when you start to ponder which Cambodia they were talking about or maybe who was doing the talking? Because Alles is about as Roger here as it ever was, sure—my shower has some moments of uncold water! The weather here is seasonable! Everything smells amazing! People are so sweet it's ridiculous—but that is not terribly Roger at all. I'm really still fresh off the monster plane delays and then rides, so forgive my headachey annoyance, but the place I am staying does not have toilet paper currently available to me which is exactly the kind of thing that throws off a day, and moreover the kind of thing I forgot happens with some frequency here. I mean, how could I have? Really? But that's the level of dispreparedness with which I entered this programme. I expect much of this will be resolved by tomorrow, either with the purchase of toilet paper by me, the location of the key curently keeping me from this appliance, or through the miracle of sleeping on a flat surface unvulnerable to the kicks of screeching babies or the turbulence of the evening skies.

So, I am safe in my little enclave, wearing clean clothes, and have showered, as I say, and may have to say yet again. My thingees are out of their ever-lovin' baggage and arranged in a neat pile on the bed and/or desk, depending on the thingee in question. I have a Cambodian cell phone, which I have escaped owning for a full three years but now, here it is, the day of reckoning. And there is no snow on my ground.

So, all in all, about as Roger as it gets.