Disheveled musings and the Kiss of Cambodia

Phnom Penh is a frenetic city. I think I've mentioned that in several of my earlier posts; since the chaos is a constant echo in my thoughts it naturally recurs often in my written musings.

I wake up to the sound of the fried egg woman pacing the street below my apartment. Twice a week I open my bedroom door to find the cleaning lady mopping the floor with an offensively pungent chemical agent. Outside my gates, the moto and tuk tuk drivers inquire, "Moto, lady?"; "Tuk-Tuk, lady?" Dust is in the air, really mean dogs bark and snarl, vehicles clog the roads at all hours, in all directions, and in general, Cambodians speak very loudly.

What's the result of this lifestyle? Recently, physical and mental pain. Physical when I jumped off a moto in a hurry last week and seared a deep burn in my leg from the smoking tailpipe. This is apparently so common it has a name: The Kiss of Cambodia. But it is not an enjoyable Kiss at all, and it leaves a really nasty mark.

Mentally, I come home around 8 or 9 p.m. excited for a relaxing evening only to find the chaos has penetrated even my internal composition. There's email from home to check, email from work to stay up on, Skype chats to have, electronics constantly malfunctioning, travel plans to make, and as tonight, tickets to buy on websites that just won't work. The answer, it seems, is TO UNPLUG, as it is so often in the states. But my laptop is also the very thing that feels like my lifeline to a safer, calmer world.

So, why am I cluttering your time with rants on cluttered lives, especially when there are so many more exciting topics I have to get to sometime (temples, travels, court visits, and incredible sex-trafficking arrests)? Because I've noticed that natives here don't seem to feel nearly as frantic as the barangs (foreigners). And I find that interesting. Perhaps it is merely a comfort level acquired through birth here. But I think it's more: I think it's this ability to quietly fold inside oneself amidst all the noise. There's this strength I can't really describe in the calm and carefree faces I see here, and it's at such odds with the anxiety I observe so often on the faces of my intern-friends the moment we talk of finances, or law school, or jobs. Before now, I don't think I would have even noted this anxiety as potentially irregular or harmful.

The other day, I frantically ran into a Kodak photo shop to take mug shots for a visa extension. It was 5:15 and I needed them by 5:30 to submit, along with my passport--essentially my identity in Cambodia--to a middleman. The whole process is so illustrative of the culture here. The government is not going to help you; it would rather you pay the $5/day fee for overstaying your visa, which is automatically processed as a 30 day allowance despite the length of stay you indicate. So what do you do? You give it to a guy who knows a guy who's bribed a guy in the government. Something that would typically make me just a little wary. But Cambodians really don't seem bothered by this, nor do long-term expats. The owner of a bed and breakfast I stayed shrugged at the mention of middlemen and said, "It always works out. You can trust people here."

But I digress. Back to my frantic wandering to the photo shop. I sat tapping my foot while the counter workers took their calm time processing my photographs. Finally they're ready, at 5:28, and I realize I left my wallet at my friend's guesthouse. I do not have even the meager $1.25 they were asking for the collection of 10 ugly self-portraits. Worse, the woman spoke no English. So there I stood, appearing to politely ask to take the photos without paying. Finally I offered my cell phone for the photos saying in loud, slow English (because of course that makes it more intelligible) to leave it as collateral until I returned. The girl laughed and rolled her eyes, said "Later" and gave me the photos. No questions asked.

When I returned 3 hours later--why a photo shop is open at 8:30 p.m. continues to boggle me--she was still there. I gave her a whopping $1.75 as a thank-you for dealing with my absentmindedness. She stared at the real notes for a while, and then said "But only 5,000." I replied in my extensive, stirring Khmer, "Late--akun (thank you)." She said, no-no-no, returned the 2,000 real and flashed a huge smile. All the while little children ran underfoot, motos screamed by, tuk-tuk drivers yelled from the doorway, and the fried egg lady made her final rounds of the day.

For a few brief moments, I didn't notice.