Takeo Province, Cambodia;
This morning I volunteered to help with the gardening again. Along with Italy and Lille, I spent a good hour and a half raking up grass and dirt and trying to avoid the heat of the sun, which was pretty much impossible. Even at 8:30am I could feel the rays burning my skin despite having sunscreen on; my eyes began to water and sting, the sweat dripping down my forehead, my clothes soaked to the bone. It was exhausting – we all felt it – and once back at Happyland, eyes burnt to a crisp, I had the urge to sleep for a year.
It was a bit of a strange day today. I felt extremely frustrated, moody and agitated. I can be emotional at the best of times but the situation I’d been in this week had hit me harder than I’d expected: I’d not worked in such close proximity to people, in a group this large, for a long time, and I feared I’d forgotten how to compromise. I was so used to being solely independent, only looking out for myself, that I found it difficult to relinquish any control and decision making to others…by nature, I’m a born leader, but this week, I knew I was also a self-confessed control freak who couldn’t admit and didn’t know how to ask for help without barking orders at people and coming across as some sort of dictator.
Plus, the heat was sometimes unbearable. I’d taken for granted that in western cultures, women can basically wear what they want without giving a second thought to how they would be perceived: scantily clad dress sense was what us Northern Brits prided ourselves on. Being in rural Cambodia therefore, where Buddhism was very much the prevalent religion and where women still had to cover their shoulders and thighs was not something I found liberating. In fact, I found it quite suppressing. Wearing long pants and not being able to air my legs was no good for my already poor circulation. And I felt uncomfortable. My legs a disgusting sweaty swollen mess, my armpits a constant cesspool of stagnation. The weariness was creeping in, and pathetically (it had only been five days after all), I was longing for some sanitation and freedom; I was longing for a proper shower, to be able to walk around in my bra and pants, in shorts and a vest, or, dare I say, naked.
Pulling myself together somewhat, the afternoon saw us playing with the kids, and to my delight I managed to make some progress with one or two of the younger boys – I helped them to come out of their shells a little, and assisted one as he practiced his handwriting. I was really impressed with the children. Like I’ve mentioned in previous posts – they were clever, intelligent, and very quick to pick things up. They were also very resilient. Repeating my sentiments again, I wished I could’ve stayed longer – I wished I could’ve had a few months there, to really get them to trust me and to help make some headway with their education.
However, I only had a few more days with them so it wasn’t possible. And whether my old friend Karma had decided to rear her beautiful head again, I don’t know, but the strangeness of the day continued. I smashed my phone screen to pieces, rendering it useless (and I wasn’t about to part with $20-30 to get it fixed when $20-30 was around five nights worth of accommodation for me in Bali). As well as the phone incident, I was also itching like mad; I’d been scratching like a possessed leper all day, and when I discovered around six million mosquito bites on my arse, making it look like a fat, pasty-white dot to dot puzzle, I decided I was done. Aside from the brief interlude where I’d helped a couple of the kids, Karma had dealt me a real shitty hand today, and I was ready for a rest.
Chasing Amy-Lou 