Man-o-gram #28
Kim has managed a brief holiday here on the Kep coast, from her busy life in Phnom Penh. Her mum Sonn, looks after her two daughters Pik(in the yellow) and Liza. Mother, daughter and two granddaughters.
“I try to be with pure heart” she told me. “My husband has another wife now and a new family he has to support, so I understand, and my mother is very happy because she looks after my two daughters, the four of us live together and I work daytime as a nurse and a second job at nighttime”. Kim speaks great English. She’s in the last year of her training to be a fully qualified nurse.
She’s the sole breadwinner and they can afford the flat they rent in Phnom Penh with her second job. “I would like one day to travel to work in another country with my family”.
I mentioned New Zealand is always looking for qualified nurses “Yes but I would need a sponsor” This girl has done her research … any takers out there ? Middlemore would love her. Got her on WhatsApp.
Further on up the road I get chatting to Soem Wha. She’s trying to hire me a hammock cubicle for tomorrow, and upsell me on the catering package. “Bring friend” she says, I tell her I’m Nigel no mates, and she replies “I friend”. Love it.
This Hammock-arium is right on the water, not a bad place to hang. Directly across the road a tired old monkey is chowing down on some trash. He’ll be eating like a king come the weekend.
I’ve started loitering down by the fishing boats, I want to go out on a mission with a crew on one. Today I caught them on the tide as a few cast off to do some night fishing in the Gulf of Thailand.
Most of them are narrow seaworthy scows with two grunty diesels on the back, direct drive to the propellor, the throttle’s on a rope, lifting and dropping the prop is on a rope, everything is on a rope. It’s pretty feral seamanship.
The big blue boat has an inboard engine, definitely the flagship, topshelf mariners there, even had a wheelhouse, with a steering wheel.
S’cuse the run of photo’s here, but I love the things. They tie flowers on the bow, it brings good luck, keeps them safe at sea and in with buddha. They don’t earn a lot, some are setup for crabs, some fish, some shrimp.
I found all this out from a cafe manager named Ay, none of the guys at the boats I approached down on the rock breakwater seemed to speak any english. Tomorrow I’m gonna hittem with Google translate ! Ay worked the boats with his dad for years, and has ‘moved up’ to scooter hire and running a cafe. “You want to hire a scooter tomorrow? $5”
While we’re on boats, I love that the ferries I took both too and from Koh Rong island had their lifejackets out and mounted over each seat back. Almost like saying, ‘we’ll do our best, but there’s no guarantee’s, so if we go down, here’s something to float around in’. Given that health and safety here is a bit of a foreign concept, I was fairly impressed by this forward thinking. Maybe Fullers Ferries on Waiheke could do the same. All care, no responsibility.
I get back to Jungle House and a couple of kiwi’s just arrived, staying a night. They know people I know. Neither of us are surprised, small world and all that.
Now to bed and there’s a lizard on insect patrol in my room just seen him nail two flies with his long tongue and zip-lock mouth. Friendly chap, let me get close, just under a foot long by my reckoning. Crap, there’s two, check out their colours, must be phone a friend, no flies on me tonight 👍🏽
Till next time :)
