27th March (2020)

 

27th March

This morning, Siem Reap is like a ghost town. Eateries are closing. 

I escape from my pleasant prison, kneel to lock the glass door, then walk through three alleyways, around the back of the nearest pagoda and to the Old Market. There I find that Nai, my usual cheap eatery, is closed. Opposite, I notice that all the eateries on that road are closed, all except the authentic Khmer eatery, which I dare not try due to a potential upset stomach. I walk back, sweating due to the exertion and to the heat.

I am back at The Hideout, which is not cheap, but now nothing is. I am having the American Breakfast, which includes pancakes, American style not British or yet French, small, fluffy pancakes which come with a minute knob of butter and some viscose fluid which is neither maple syrup but sweet nevertheless. These are accompanied by slightly salty bacon which, thankfully, has not been overcooked and two (quite passable) sunny-side eggs. Of course it’s not filling. And the small amount of coffee I have been presented with seems stewed. A great way to start the day. I am being ironic.

I think tomorrow I need to buy some eggs, cook eggs every morning, just like I had in Dhaka, only here I will have to cook them myself, have no beautiful soft chapatis either, and wash up after myself. A question. Why is it that Indian restaurants in Siem Reap don’t want to serve breakfast food, like idly and dosa, at breakfast time. Mostly they open at 10am, and then wonder why they don’t get customers.

Today is challenging, frustrating, stressful and whole lot more adjectives and a few expletives too. I am attempting a piece of work which includes five young adults, one ageing Mac computer, one app. that I am not familiar with (Discord), and another app. which I am becoming more familiar with - WhatsApp.

This evening started off full of hope. ‘Yeah, I got this’ I say to no-one in particular, punching the air as I do so, and very careful not to brain myself on a white (barely distinguishable from the ceiling) low hanging concrete beam. I have a run-through with my project manager, and all seems well. But now, it seems, that it isn’t.

One by one, the little faces come up on the project board in ‘Discord’. I should have known that there might be a very good reason that a) the app. was free, and b) that it should have that name. Up they pop, smiling, hopeful young faces. Then they freeze. The audio book which I had arranged to play, could not be heard. My young audience stared out from the screen like zombies oblivious to my instructions. No matter how I try to interact with them, nothing happens. We try, and try for more time than I would otherwise have wished to spend on such an endeavour. Nothing happens. Luckily my audience cannot hear my Anglo Saxon language, otherwise it would be project over.

Luckily, we had previously been interacting on WhatsApp., which is good but limiting. 

So now I have transferred the ‘class’ over to WhatsApp. We can text, we can even leave short burst audio messages, jpeg images to, and that is our work round. Tomorrow I hope that we can continue.

Today’s spend Breakfast $6.50; Shopping (bread, butter, cheese slices and tomatoes) $8.05 = $14.55.