(I wrote this a couple days ago... so you can add two days to any time-related statements. I'm too lazy to edit them all and double check for continuity.)
Well, the power went out last night and didn’t come back on, as it looks like our building is wired poorly (wrong) and it’s being fixed this morning. I’m not really surprised, not to say I saw it coming or anything… Anyway, Sharon and I slept downstairs on the couches in the waiting room. It totally felt like a school time slumber party.
Anyway life here’s getting a bit interesting and busy. I don’t want to miss anything, but there’s really no beginning, so… Anyway.
We finally moved from the hotel to the school Wednesday morning. Mike (Dara’s friend, and our new music teacher) arrived Monday. Wednesday I had lunch with Thomas, the secretary of the Cambodian Federation of Rugby, who gave me a lot of contacts. I had e-mailed him about getting involved with Women’s Rugby here, to see if there were any teams to practice with. He asked if I had any experience or interest in coaching as well, and of course I said yes. It looks like I might end up helping out a bit with the women’s national team here, which is EXCITING to say the least. There’s also a gala dinner coming up (good banter was guaranteed to me) plus some matches and tournaments that I may or may not be able to make, given my Saturday teaching schedule.
So last night I went out to a training session for U20s at PSE (a French NGO, Pour un Sourire d’Enfant) with a guy named Sylvere (who Thomas put me in contact with). PSE is a school for disadvantaged Cambodian kids, and I guess it’s just the school team. I watched the training and we had a little chat afterwards about what I can do to help and/or participate. While I was watching several of the girls greeted me with a friendly “Bonsoir” as they rotated through the lines in their drills. I also chatted with a girl sitting out (due to injury, natch) and Rami, whose birthday it was, after practice. Sylvere was friendly and happy to have someone offering to help out. It looks like he has enough help for the PSE practices, especially as he’s trying to train a young Khmer guy as a coach, but I’m welcome to come along to trainings and participate. Which frankly, sounds perfect. The girls seem friendly and it would be pretty cool to be able to have a team to run around with. The only other girls team is Lycée Descartes, and the two sides play each other once in awhile. I don’t think I’ll be playing in any games, as the girls are much younger than me, but rugby is rugby is rugby. It’s always good. (And I really need the exercise.) It will be interesting, though to be running at a practice where all the instruction is given in French and then translated into Khmer.
Sylvere helps coach the women’s national side, and Soaphan, one of the players who was there last night, helps coordinate the side. Since Mondays are my days off, we’re going to try and set up some trainings for then. That will be more coaching. Sylvere is very busy (with work and running lots of trainings for other teams, including the men’s national side and some boys teams), and he said he would definitely appreciate the help.
I figure, rugby got me into this mess (well, not a mess really), I might as well give back.
Not only was Sylvere happy and helpful about the rugby, but he also invited me (and friends) out to dinner with his friends last night. We met up at a pretty good Italian/European place run by a Khmer chef who used to work for the UN and loves cheese, and sat at a long table mostly of French speakers. We ended up chatting to Vincent, a French cabinet-maker who used to live in India and is traveling and living around the world for awhile before going back. Rugby, and the people you end up meeting. Nonetheless, very nice of Sylvere to extend the invitation. It seems like the expat/western community here is generally welcoming and supportive, as we’re all so transient and there are so few established resources here to go off of, other than street knowledge and connections.
The other exciting rugby lead is this guy, Graham, who works in marine environmental impact assessments, for a construction/natural resource development company. Thomas sent a short introductory e-mail and I expected a quick reply of, “Who is this girl? Does she have a resumé? What does she want?” but instead I got a friendly e-mail about his own background in marine biology and the invitation to put me in touch with other people in the company and chat about marine resources sometime. Rugby!
As I was showering this morning I thought back to how, in college, I thought about spending more time studying and less time playing rugby. So very glad I didn’t.
Anyway, the rugby-related meetings have eclipsed slightly what were the bigger news items this week – the arrival of Mike, the move to the school, getting our pictures taken at a portrait studio for the upcoming concert, and planning and preparing for said concert.
The move to the school was smooth, despite the power issues we’re having now – we overloaded the circuit last night when we all came home and turned on our lights and air conditioners at the same time. It’s a much bigger relief to be living here than I thought it would be. Relief? Well, comfortable. It’s really nice to not have to be on everyone else’s schedule, make my own breakfast, and just head out and get a tuk tuk at night without worrying about the hotel staff judging/gossiping about it. Plus, Sacom’s pretty cute and is basically like our little pet. A very active pet who only sort of speaks English, Chinese, Khmer, and holds great destructive potential for our belongings. Wait, that’s almost exactly like a pet.
The experience at the portrait studio was pretty entertaining. We had always made fun of this one poster in the elevator at the hotel, with cheesy, super-photoshopped pictures advertising a FujiFilm-connected studio. Guess where we ended up getting photographed?
We got all done up and got snaps taken, me with guitar solo and playing violin in a group. For a concert where the instruments are likely to only be piano, guitar, and voice. Ohhh well. Truth in advertising doesn’t seem to be an established practice here. Or at home for that matter. At one point they had me holding the guitar in super classical style, with the neck wayyyyy up, and with me slightly turned to the side and with my head cocked. Basically in exactly the pose I would have done if I was being an idiot and trying to act dumb and crack people up. I felt so stupid, I couldn’t stop laughing and had this huge grin on my face. After a few photos of that, the photographer said something and Suong translated rather harshly: “Change your face!” This only made me laugh more.
Our next big task is putting on a concert at a restaurant, to promote the school, in about two weeks. We’ve finally got all the pieces selected and now pretty much just need to go about practicing them. Sounds easy. It’s straightforward, but not easy. So now my mornings and early afternoons are devoted to practice, and late afternoons are for teaching. Wheeee. And evenings are about rugby, getting out, trying to start a social life. Busy busy busy.
And there we are. And here I am.
P.S. A comment that Thomas made about the rugby: “We have plenty of equipment, that’s not the problem. We need coaches.” It made me smile at first, given how much of a struggle getting the right equipment at home can be. It made me think, though, that money isn’t the problem. Money is the easy part, really. Not necessarily large amounts of money, but there’s enough cash and stuff floating around in the world for a bit of charity here, a few dozen soccer balls here, a school building over yonder… The material things are the easy part. They can be ordered and manufactured and shipped and paid for without a lot of effort. Knowledge is the hard part. Experience is difficult to find, impossible to transport. It’s people that make the difference. (I’m sure that’s someone’s tag line by now.)
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