Saturday 14/03/09
Most of this week was fairly uneventful up until Friday. We were supposed to have the Cutting Edge books ready on Monday but of course we didn't so Joss and I had to do some last-minute lesson planning AGAIN. Hopefully we should have at least one copy to work from by next Monday.
All week Savoeurn has been promising a meeting with another building contractor for the basketball court and on Thursday morning he finally delivered! Although he suddenly told me he had the contractor waiting for a meeting when I was five minutes into my morning class I was still pleased on some level haha. The meeting was far more arduous than any class with Savoeurn and the contractor talking heatedly in Khmer that was too fast and probably too rude for me to follow. Eventually they came to a decision and Savoeurn took fifteen minutes to type it all up into a nice neat contract that took forty-five minutes to carefully explain to me in English. Eventually we all thumb-printed the contract to make it official and the contractor promised to return tomorrow with materials so we could give him the first installment of his pay.
So bright and early Joss and I commuted to Kampot to withdraw cash from the Basketball fund. This worked out pretty well since we were able to pick up some party snacks and a really tasty cake for my birthday party on Friday night. As promised the contractor started work on the basketball court on Friday morning.
The basketball court finally being built was a pretty great b'day pressie but I also got some other pretty memorable ones. I got a great book about Ladakh from my family that my mum carefully smuggled into Joss's care the week before. I got some nice cards and a funny luggage tag from the Ames clan.... and I got a bunch of coconuts. Not just any coconuts either, coconuts that required a long and drawn out story. Apparently Phirom, Lalin and Bo were trying to think of a good present and they remembered we really like fresh coconuts. Unfortunately, by the time they had figured this out there was quite a storm going on. Phirom decided to climb the tree in the rain anyway and Lalin told me he was yelling "Phirom! You crazy!!" at the top of his voice as is the Khmer custom among friends to which Phirom replied "No I'm not crazy, its for Tom's present!". Thats how crazy our students are. I also had lots of fun and exercise getting the coconuts open with a realllllly blunt cleaver on Saturday.
The party itself was great fun. At least half the youth team showed up along with most of the staff. Savouern was still in Chamcar Bei so he came as well bringing some exciting news. As soon as he arrived at the party he got a phone call and talked away from the house for a while and when he finished he came back grinning from ear to ear and explained that the King of Cambodia had expressed an interest in visiting the project before Khmer New Year. He also informed me afterwards that the King is a big basketball fan and would like to play with us if he visits. Savoeurn thinks this is a good excuse to speed up the construction. The party went crazy after that with youth team members blasting raucous Khmer tunes and dancing, drinking and generally partying while the staff looked on happily from behind their beers, occasionally joining in with dancing. Even Sarim and Pech showed up about half way through the party (on the same moto, which caused quite a sensation and elicited lots of teasing from the youth team) and got right into the swing of things. Just before the party started, when we had tied down the last balloon, we had worried that we might have gone overboard buying lots of fruit, snacks and a 24 pack of Angkor and Coke. We realised we had been right on the money pretty quickly when everyone started challenging each other to beer downing contests. But of course being Khmer they slowed down or switched to Coke after two beers which made for a far more pleasant party. We played lots of weird and wonderful party games as well. One game involved putting a balloon between two people's foreheads while both of them pushed until the balloon popped. Luckily nobody drank too much so nobody got more than a light collision of heads.
It was a really great way to celebrate my birthday in Cambodia, despite alllllll the tidying up :)
Most of this week was fairly uneventful up until Friday. We were supposed to have the Cutting Edge books ready on Monday but of course we didn't so Joss and I had to do some last-minute lesson planning AGAIN. Hopefully we should have at least one copy to work from by next Monday.
All week Savoeurn has been promising a meeting with another building contractor for the basketball court and on Thursday morning he finally delivered! Although he suddenly told me he had the contractor waiting for a meeting when I was five minutes into my morning class I was still pleased on some level haha. The meeting was far more arduous than any class with Savoeurn and the contractor talking heatedly in Khmer that was too fast and probably too rude for me to follow. Eventually they came to a decision and Savoeurn took fifteen minutes to type it all up into a nice neat contract that took forty-five minutes to carefully explain to me in English. Eventually we all thumb-printed the contract to make it official and the contractor promised to return tomorrow with materials so we could give him the first installment of his pay.
So bright and early Joss and I commuted to Kampot to withdraw cash from the Basketball fund. This worked out pretty well since we were able to pick up some party snacks and a really tasty cake for my birthday party on Friday night. As promised the contractor started work on the basketball court on Friday morning.
The basketball court finally being built was a pretty great b'day pressie but I also got some other pretty memorable ones. I got a great book about Ladakh from my family that my mum carefully smuggled into Joss's care the week before. I got some nice cards and a funny luggage tag from the Ames clan.... and I got a bunch of coconuts. Not just any coconuts either, coconuts that required a long and drawn out story. Apparently Phirom, Lalin and Bo were trying to think of a good present and they remembered we really like fresh coconuts. Unfortunately, by the time they had figured this out there was quite a storm going on. Phirom decided to climb the tree in the rain anyway and Lalin told me he was yelling "Phirom! You crazy!!" at the top of his voice as is the Khmer custom among friends to which Phirom replied "No I'm not crazy, its for Tom's present!". Thats how crazy our students are. I also had lots of fun and exercise getting the coconuts open with a realllllly blunt cleaver on Saturday.
The party itself was great fun. At least half the youth team showed up along with most of the staff. Savouern was still in Chamcar Bei so he came as well bringing some exciting news. As soon as he arrived at the party he got a phone call and talked away from the house for a while and when he finished he came back grinning from ear to ear and explained that the King of Cambodia had expressed an interest in visiting the project before Khmer New Year. He also informed me afterwards that the King is a big basketball fan and would like to play with us if he visits. Savoeurn thinks this is a good excuse to speed up the construction. The party went crazy after that with youth team members blasting raucous Khmer tunes and dancing, drinking and generally partying while the staff looked on happily from behind their beers, occasionally joining in with dancing. Even Sarim and Pech showed up about half way through the party (on the same moto, which caused quite a sensation and elicited lots of teasing from the youth team) and got right into the swing of things. Just before the party started, when we had tied down the last balloon, we had worried that we might have gone overboard buying lots of fruit, snacks and a 24 pack of Angkor and Coke. We realised we had been right on the money pretty quickly when everyone started challenging each other to beer downing contests. But of course being Khmer they slowed down or switched to Coke after two beers which made for a far more pleasant party. We played lots of weird and wonderful party games as well. One game involved putting a balloon between two people's foreheads while both of them pushed until the balloon popped. Luckily nobody drank too much so nobody got more than a light collision of heads.
It was a really great way to celebrate my birthday in Cambodia, despite alllllll the tidying up :)
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