The big payback. Sort of.

Meandering around, oh the paths that I wander
The roads that I follow that lead me on yonder
But soft! there are signs that encourage my yearning
And so as I travel -- is it life or ‘tis learning?

KEP, CAMBODIA

June 16, 2008

Monday. A turning point in my research, which I think, is pretty well-deserved, and so just about time. I met with a couple of potential translators and came up with one, so I was pretty happy with that, since I’ve been waiting to get started on this project for the longest time. He seems pretty nice, his English is quite good, and he needs the work, so I think this will be a pretty good partnership. So, we’re now up to two translators between TH project and my own which is a great thing, definitely.

After the translator meeting was some time well spent hanging out on the hammocks and just relaxing. We sat and chatted with Kunthy, the woman-of-the-millennium at CIH here, who always has interesting things to say and is definitely a big help here at CIH. I just wish there was more support in place for her here, because there’s a good chance that she’s being overworked with little in the way of help – either from above or below. But I thought this was a nice picture of her, because she’s always trying to help the students out even though I’m pretty sure she’s inundated with her own work.



Oh, rewind a little. An update on the home front – as in, a peon story. Met with Doc D today to discuss my project, and while I have to admit the meeting was a little kitchy, with him asking me ethical questions about my research, I suppose that I get what he’s doing – it’s not that he’s testing me, I think it’s more that he wants to make sure that I’ve thought about the ethics of conducting research in a developing country. Anyways, that’s not the point. I mentioned to him that Peon 1 would be arriving next week, and he said, oh yes, that’s a good thing. I said, well, we’re going to be starting the surveys this week, so I’ll probably take her out to shadow me for a day before setting her off on her own once she gets here. He replies, well, I’ve worked with her before and she needs a lot of guidance. She’s kind of lost, he says, when she isn’t told exactly what to do. At that point, I balked. Maybe out loud. Not sure. But the whole thing is stupid – if he knew this before, why the frick didn’t he warn me about it way back when he recruited her to my project?! And now I am left picking up the pieces.

Dinner was at Kimly; Doc D took us out for dinner as an entire group, which was nice, and I have to say, there was much trepidation on my part prior to dinner for a couple of reasons: (a) because I figured there was no way he was going to pay for this, and (b) because food in Cambodia takes FOREVER to be served and going with a giant group of 26 people wasn’t going to improve the already slow dinner response time. The road to Kimly for dinner:


I was wrong on both fronts (thankfully). Dinner was bought and paid for by Doc D (and I took advantage by having two drinks -- coconut water and water and half of someone else's lychee joice that they didn't want to finish) and it was really very good. Secondly, because we ordered plates to share and there were only 6 different dishes, the food rolled over in courses, and quite quickly. Yay! We had Kampot pepper shrimp, ginger fried fish, deep fried squid, grilled prok, seafood tom yum soup, and MORNING GLORY.

Best part of the whole meal though, was when Doc V leaned over to me and whispered in my ear: "I guess now you know where your $600 is going..." I nearly choked. Instead, I guffawed.