Our new Khmer family member!
Last week we started Khmer lessons. We meet for an hour every morning, and we will have 10 hours of class before our lessons end. The words we have learnt have been very helpful. Our teacher Monivan is a very atypical young Khmer woman. When she graduated from high school in a small village in rural Cambodia, she moved by herself to Phnom Penh to teach Khmer to foreigners. A young woman moving by herself to a city to teach Khmer is virtually unheard of in the countryside, which makes Monivan even more interesting. Monivan’s courage and determination inspire me.
We also had a meeting with the director of the legal program at the Royal Institute of Law and Economics and his assistant. The director was a practicing attorney when the Khmer Rouge came into power, and he was one of seven attorneys who actually survived the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea. I wish I had asked him more questions about his experiences during the reign of the Khmer Rouge, but I did not know if it would be appropriate for me to ask such questions. He had a very gentle and kind face. His smile was so sweet and serene—he had a peace about him. I could sense that a lot of difficulty and hardship existed in his past.
The other interns and I have been working on a database of all existing Cambodian laws for LAC. This task is rather dry, but I think it will be helpful for us to learn more about Cambodian laws. Many of the laws are poorly worded in the English translation, and some of the laws appear redundant, and in some cases, contradictory.
On a light side note, the other interns and I hired Yok Hiep’s friend as a cook for three days of the week. I am really looking forward to eating some good Khmer food and hopefully learning some cooking techniques from Phy (pronounced “Pee”.) Phy seems very sweet and kind, and her only English words are “thank you” and “I’m sorry” (although I did teach her “rain” on the way to our house.) She is really excited to cook for us, and I think she is also excited to learn some English. (I’m also hoping to pick up more Khmer from her.) Yok Hiep said that Phy has no family, and she sleeps at Yok Hiep’s house. Phy will sleep at our house three nights of the week so she won’t have to wake so early in the morning to prepare our breakfast. Marlou, the administrative consultant at LAC, said that Phy is a fortune teller, and Leigh Anne thinks that Phy is the same woman who read her fortune by the Mekong River when she visited Phnom Penh in April. Crazy. I think Phy is going to make our house very interesting for the next two months…
We also had a meeting with the director of the legal program at the Royal Institute of Law and Economics and his assistant. The director was a practicing attorney when the Khmer Rouge came into power, and he was one of seven attorneys who actually survived the Democratic Republic of Kampuchea. I wish I had asked him more questions about his experiences during the reign of the Khmer Rouge, but I did not know if it would be appropriate for me to ask such questions. He had a very gentle and kind face. His smile was so sweet and serene—he had a peace about him. I could sense that a lot of difficulty and hardship existed in his past.
The other interns and I have been working on a database of all existing Cambodian laws for LAC. This task is rather dry, but I think it will be helpful for us to learn more about Cambodian laws. Many of the laws are poorly worded in the English translation, and some of the laws appear redundant, and in some cases, contradictory.
On a light side note, the other interns and I hired Yok Hiep’s friend as a cook for three days of the week. I am really looking forward to eating some good Khmer food and hopefully learning some cooking techniques from Phy (pronounced “Pee”.) Phy seems very sweet and kind, and her only English words are “thank you” and “I’m sorry” (although I did teach her “rain” on the way to our house.) She is really excited to cook for us, and I think she is also excited to learn some English. (I’m also hoping to pick up more Khmer from her.) Yok Hiep said that Phy has no family, and she sleeps at Yok Hiep’s house. Phy will sleep at our house three nights of the week so she won’t have to wake so early in the morning to prepare our breakfast. Marlou, the administrative consultant at LAC, said that Phy is a fortune teller, and Leigh Anne thinks that Phy is the same woman who read her fortune by the Mekong River when she visited Phnom Penh in April. Crazy. I think Phy is going to make our house very interesting for the next two months…
posted by Laura at 3:20 AM
4 Comments:
Laura,
It's great to hear about the work you will be undertaking and people you are meeting. It sounds like a good start to your fellowship and if you have any digital photos to post, I'd be interested to know the people you are working and living with.
Warm regards,
Kim
Good to hear all is well - Andrew says "Don't drink the water."
hey ls,
we're thinking of you. thanks for your newsy & fascinating reflections -- it's great to be able to pop in and read what you've been up to. i'd love to know more about your research regarding trafficking, both the process and the outcome. very exciting!!
i'd also love to know more about how the food is. we had an influx of cambodian refugees into our town in the 1980s and we "adopted" a family thru our church; my main memory of their meals is that all the dishes were incredibly spicy. but i was a kid, with a palate more attuned to pb&j ...
we're home from sri lanka. all is well in MO.
love, lg & the b
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