Maluco

Maluco, meaning crazy or daft, is a mild insult here. A power outage had forced me out of the office, although it had been a relatively productive day until that point. As Paulo sped me away in his txopela a people carrier practically steamrollered us and Paulo had to swerve fast to prevent us being squashed. ‘Maluco’, he yelled. The driver of the car smiled warmly and benignly by way of a greeting. It reminded me fully of motorists’ behaviour in Cambodia, where you wouldn’t say spatial awareness skills on the road were high. In Phnom Penh I took to dismounting my bike and blocking the way of a car that had almost ploughed into me moments before. Every time I was perceived as a friendly foreigner stopping to greet, not as someone attempting to draw attention to the fact I almost had a face full of concrete.

I suppose on balance it’s better than UK-style road rage involving fisticuffs and footage of the incident uploaded to YouTube by a bystander.

I noticed someone refer to Trump on the internet today as ‘a walking talking plague’. Very well said.