Turning the Table

I'd lived in 3 apartments in Phnom Penh since arriving in 2014, but last year I finally came to live in my favourite neighbourhood - Tonle Bassac, on the best street - number 312, which has a super friendly community vibe.

The Pagoda next door gives me a daily dose of beauty to look at and a weekly serving of spirituality to listen to with Buddhist chants that start at 6am over loudspeakers. The laneways around 312 offer up characters, sights, sounds and smells that keep me intrigued and excited and I marvel on a daily basis that I came to live in Phnom Penh.

On 312 there is the Long Live Hotel where I've never seen any guests by day; there is a pizza restaurant run by Paolo from Naples, also a little art gallery Nowhere set up by a self taught Korean artist Loly and her Malaysian partner where I did a workshop to cut rubber and made stamps to print cards and a journal.

Little convenience stores are dotted along every 20 metres or so of Street 312 although I prefer to go to the small stall run by the lady who has it set up outside her house and smiles a toothless smile whenever I see her.

The building I live in has a big courtyard in the entry way where everyone parks their bicycles and motorbikes. The area is filled with many tropical plants that the landlady and two young guys Tinh and Kunh plant. Sometimes the 3 of them sit on low plastic stools and make plant holders by emptying out coconut husks, then place velvety purple and white orchids into the hollow insides and wire them up to hang along the shaded boundary wall.

Tinh works by day and Kuhn at night. Their main role is to work as security guards though they do lots of other work around the building. Tinh helps me by bringing up the 25 litre container of water I drink every week; he pumps air into my bike tyres and practices his few words of French. Bonjour is his favourite greeting to me and he calls it out in a sing-song way that's typical of the French. Tinh comes from a rural province in Cambodia and sends nearly all his salary home.

Kuhn has many questions for me every time I walk past him to go in or out of the building. I've taken to allowing a few extra minutes so that I don't end up being late to appointments because it's become our daily ritual to have exploratory conversations. Kuhn likes to talk about everything from who the real heroes of the world are today to ones revered from history, Vipassana meditation and other ways of strengthening the mind, many kinds of food, especially any that could help him gain weight and what's on YouTube. He wants to go to university, preferably in Australia and become a human rights lawyer, but for now, his priority is to finish high school and support himself and his niece who's an orphan. For many young people in Cambodia, going to university is a luxury and not affordable on their salary. Kuhn is 27 years old and often tells me he thinks he's now too old. When I say to him that he will be able to contribute for a long time even if he graduates in 10 years and that he's still adding to the community today, but in different ways, he cheers up.

Tui the landlady's niece does the cleaning and maintenance around the building and is always smiling. Her little son whose nickname is Tin Tin usually trails along with her. I have a stash of lollipops for him in my fridge that I give him one at a time. He likes to high 5 every time we see each other and practice his English. One time he gave me his little rubber dog as a gift. He insisted I take it. I couldn't say no. I have put it on display on the table where I keep my other special ornaments.

I know the 3 tuktuk drivers and 2 motodops who sit parked out on the street waiting to get a fare. Many tuktuk drivers come to Phnom Penh from the smaller provincial towns to make a living. There are very few opportunities for employment in regional areas aside from farming which doesn't provide a stable income. Families left behind back home rely on the tuktuk drivers to support them. Living in the city is expensive and at night, most of the drivers sling a hammock inside their tuktuk to sleep in. It's a competitive business and they are always on the lookout for a fare and the only times they don't call out 'tuktuk lady'? to me is when they see me come out of the building on my bicycle or if I'm taking the motorbike taxi. Whenever I use a tuktuk, I try and take it in turns so I'm giving business to all my local drivers. There's one man Dee who sits directly outside my front gates. He knows the landlady and landlord and often has lunch with Tinh.

A man who rides the bike-taxi is called a motodop. It's usually men. I've only seen one woman motodop in the past 3 years. One of the motodops in Street 312 has known my landlady and landlord for 20 years. Every night he makes up a small camping style of bed to sleep in in the courtyard of my building next to Tinh's makeshift bed.

In 1975, when Pol Pot took over the country, there were many forced marriages. My landlady and landlord got married in that same year and told me they feel fortunate that they aren't one of those couples. Although their marriage was arranged, they had a choice. They look happy together. She was a teacher in ethnographic studies before the Khmer Rouge era.

Their apartment which is much like a family house is on the ground level of the building. The entrance is right near the lift so I catch a glimpse of them often and we chat in a mix of Khmer, English and French. Both of them went to school during the time that Cambodia was a French protectorate and speak fluent French.

On my last weekend in Cambodia, I wanted to treat the landlady and landlord, Tinh, Kuhn, Tui, Dee the tuktuk driver and the motodop to dinner. My plan was to go to the Kap Kor market to the tilapia lady and buy her freshly grilled fish and chicken and bring it back so we could all sit in the courtyard on the plastic stools and eat together.

Instead I came home in the evening and the landlord guided me into their apartment to a grand table that had been set beautifully with 10 places. The landlady and Tui had been cooking and preparing all day. They had made green noodles with chicken, white noodles with pork. They had slow cooked a delicious curry with huge wild prawns and got crusty baguettes that we mopped up the sauce with. We had sticky rice delicacies encased in fresh herbs and wrapped in banana leaves that had been delivered especially from Battambang, a local speciality of that town. Dessert was a delicious custard made with sago pearls and corn. We drank grass jelly and winter melon juice and beer.

I felt overwhelmed with affection and gratitude for their generosity and the wonderful home they have given me for the year. Not merely the physical space but opening up the space in their hearts and becoming my Cambodian family.

Research says that 70% of our communication is non verbal. In the absence of a complete common language, we used to all speak in a patchwork of words that we shared and gesticulate to fill in the gaps. This left us at times wanting - frustrated or laughing. I hope I regularly, non verbally showed my Cambodian family over the year we had together how much they came to mean to me. I do wish though that on the last night we had together I could have said in words to them why they will live in my memory always.