Living in Cambodia...: Market, swim, dance

Everything here takes 4 times longer than you would generally allow for normally some simple jobs took a day! .... Such as the printing of photos from the Smile exhibition. My task was easy - get the pictures printed and locate some plastic wallets to put them in for sale in the gallery. Sadly the first batch of printing that was done for me was useless so I had to go back to the print shop (which I loathe) and explain the pictures were "under-exposed" to a woman who didn't speak English!!

I then toured the hot, sweaty, over crowded central market for an hour looking for the little plastic wallets. A woman (selling dried fish) at one point asked me what I was looking for (clearly 45 minutes in I was looking a little distressed!) after me miming [a mime for plastic bag is difficult] she pointed in a general direction told me to: "go -go-round"... My faith that the plastic things I was looking for existed was renewed and some 15 minutes later there they were (!!!) - hidden in amongst the craziness of Chinese New Year decorations and more dried fish.

At the weekend we took Sina (from the children's shelter) and her 2 best mates (Srey Leak and Menea) to the water park. I had been there once before. Its not all that bad - think Western-S- Mare and that sea front park with the big pineapple c.1990 - The children enjoyed it though and it was followed by a trip to the largest mall in Phnom Penh, Sovanna, for a burger and fries.

We also took 4 older children from the Shelter to see a dance performance which was the result of a Senegalese woman tutoring 30 Cambodian dancers over the course of a week. This was a great event - The young dancers had been trained in modern African dance technique and then had incorporated their own styles: hip hop, apsara... They came from a variety of backgrounds circus, theatre, classical dance. It was full of energy and the venue was heaving. Far too many expats for my liking but that is to be expected if the action is taking place in an expat garden/bar. There were a few Cambodians watching though including an old woman who had had quite a lot to drink and was announcing very loudly over and over "I want to dance like that" (translation provided by the children!). At that moment the dancers were performing some fairly sexual dance moves...!