I am currently in Kampong Speu just to the west of Phnom Penh. I am literally a pilgrim without the benefit of language skills.We arrived here on Sunday to attend a three-day workshop on accelerated curriculum, for which I presume I have some responsibility since the Special education office is hosting this workshop along with the Provincial office of education.
Anyway back to my interesting dilemma, I am here in a strange town, don’t know the language and I find myself at a restaurant with my four compadres, and eight other guys whose English is as good as my Khmer. We are all drinking, me beer, them some wine that is the national treasure of Cambodia and is guaranteed to make you strong physically and mentally. It says so on the label. We are eating very well and I am making do with my chopsticks. The fish is fabulous and the twenty or so other dishes are also good. I don’t think there was any dessert unless you count the Chinese dessert (toothpicks).
For the sophisticated sensibilities of my friends who take an active interest in what I do and don’t do, I will skip the marriage vows and the karaoke struggles afterward except to say that while I don’t sing, I don’t get married in a blink either.
Today was the first day of the conference and to say that I was lost is to heap praise upon my navigational skills. Evidently workshops and conferences are not held in English or Swedish or even Norwegian no matter who sponsors them. I was introduced and from that point on I didn’t understand a word. Another Caucasian (European) came in about ten minutes after the beginning and I was introduced to him. His name was Serge and he had spent some time (5 or 6 years) in Cambodia as well as in Viet Nam and he currently resides in Madagascar with his wife and family. He is French and as luck would have it one of my companions from the Special Ed office speaks fluent French and Cambodian but no English. This guy speaks English and French. So between the three-way hook up, I was able to make quite a bit of sense of the morning and afternoon session. He is leaving in the morning and I am on my own. Even worse, my brother and bosom companion who loves me like his father and who speaks a modicum of English is leaving in the morning for Phnom Penh. I am desolate. From here is anyone’s guess.
