The People that I Meet

Always waiting in ambush

To say that Cambodian are a tolerant, easy going and happy group of people sounds about as dumb as saying the Irish are drunks or Italians hot headed, so I will say the Cambodians that I meet are just the nicest people.  Walking down the street I always get a nice smile from someone.  Even the moto or tuktuk drives who are always saying "Tuktuk", smile when I say no, and they will laugh if I say "Wakwak".

Sopheak

       As usual my life falls into routines and the Cambodians I meet notice.  I go the a Sunday service and stop in a really nice cafe and guest house called the Boddhi Tree.   I never have much time so now the waiter, Sopheak, a really nice kid in his twenties, asks coffee? as I walk through the garden.  Two weeks ago when he brought it over he said that he remembered that I don't take milk or sugar and I said how nice of you to remember, the only problem is that I do take milk but not sugar, but for two weeks running I have not had the heart to tell him.  Cambodian coffee is not that good anyway and I'm really looking for half and half so I decided to just have it black, just like he remembers.  One of my other regular stops is SuperCheap, a beer and wine store.  The names of these places that cater to westerners are kind of silly, Lucky is chain of grocery stores and sub shops and hamburger places,  Excellent Market is right around the block and its isn't really that excellent,  but SuperCheap lives up to its name in one respect, Beck's Beer for $4.20 a six pack. It is a modern store and has a glass front and sliding doors.  It is way over staffed, which is the case with a lot of stores, and there is a young man in SuperCheap who always spots me coming and I can see him head for the Beck's as the doors open.  I really don't think he sees me as incapable of finding the beer or unable to carry it to the counter, he is just nice.  One day in between walking in and paying at the counter (it takes three girls to ring up the sale and put the six pack in a plastic bag) a downpour started.  He came over and took my beer and put it aside and invited me into separate part of the store that is kind of like a wine cellar, super air conditioned and fun looking at all the labels, some over $200 a bottle.  He came back ten minutes later to say the rain had stopped.

The Beck's is on the right

Samol

  Samol has become my tuktuk driver and because I have been tutoring two or three afternoons  a week I am calling him a lot.  He is the nicest guy.  I feel like a cross between a rajah and a ugly American sitting in the back of his tuktuk but it is always fun seeing the city and taking note of the driving.  I've said this before I know, but the antics on the road here are really quite amazing.  Maybe they teach accelerating as you enter an intersection at driver's ed because everyone does it.  Even Samol who drives really slow, does it.  When there is congestion at an intersection, motos slip though the smallest opening to get to the front and a group always goes up on the sidewalk and then to the head of the cue.  No one gets mad.  I watch Samol watching them and I kind of get the feeling he is saying "Good move". Twice my appointments got cancelled at the last minute and Samol was down stairs waiting and when I told him he says "No Problem".  I used to ask him how much, some drivers are really a pain about money, but Samol always says "Whatever you think", so I don't ask him anymore.  Gayla told me that her first year here she was really broke and Samol would take her places for very little or nothing.  She trusts him and calls him a friend.  Every time she and I go somewhere he is always invited in and always declines.   He invited us to his homeland on the last holiday and we both had to decline, but made a little pack that we would go out to the country to visit with his extended family next time we get invited.  Now that would be a story I am sure.  As you might have realized by now I am quite taken by the people I meet.  Samol's quite dignity, the thoughtfulness and positive nature of him and others have become what I am most impressed with in this little backwater country.  If, as the beatitudes say, 'the meek shall inherit the earth',  I would think the Cambodian will own a lot of property.