7:45 - I quickly put on my red monitor shirt and make it over to the J-building, where all the other monitors reside for the month of August. This is where PSE breakfast is served for us red shirts: baguettes and strawberry jam, instant coffee and milk. Every day, without exception. Everybody's there, there must be about 200 pairs of flip-flops parked on the bottom of the staircase.
8:05 - After breakfast Mitessa and Ignacio walk us through all the different activity areas, there are twenty areas spread out over campus. Marisa hands me a mobile phone, as driver I must be constantly available throughout the day. Cool, now Blandine too can reach whenever she needs, I feel quite happy about that.
12:15 - For lunch, most of us go to a place dubbed "McNoodle", a shack about a block away from the campus grounds. The owner speaks no English, so I use my little phrase book to order some noodles - really, what else did you expect? When I use the PSE phrase book to ask for the bill, the owner's daughter answers 5500 Riel, in perfect Spanish! I can't believe my ears.
13:15 - The afternoon is spent changing rooms to smaller quarters in the guest house, then, at
16:45 - I'm introduced to van 6550, a white stick-shift Chrysler with an open back, dressed with 2 wooden benches. The aircon does't work, but she's got electric windows. My first driving experience in Cambodia, in the company of a 17 year old Khmer monitor named Soporn (he prefers to go by "Porn"). I'm excited! Yes, I said "I'm excited", not "I'm horny". For the next two weeks Porn and I will be attached to the hip: we'll be moving food and people in and out of this van all throughout the day. I sign the release form at the guard station, "6550" is now officially in my hands. 20 years of driving in Europe and California may not necessarily be the right preparation to partake in this mad Cambodian traffic dance, with cars going in all directions, and no traffic lights to help out. Yet the Cambodian traffic gods are well-tempered, I spend a good 20 minutes sweating before I return my white iron lady back to the campus unscathed.
17:15 - Pablo Lanuza and Ines; the camp monitor leads for the two paillottes that I will be serving pass me their schedule. I'll be driving their teams to work in the morning, together with the food, then run a bunch of errands. In the evening I'll go pick them up. We agree on the schedule, and I'm all set to go, right? Not! There's this teensy weensy problem: the van I'm driving is needed for something else tomorrow, so I'm car-less. Aaargh.
No probs, this situation just requires a bit of Cambodian flexibility. One phone call to Pilar, the PSE student who agreed to be the camp accountant, sorts it all out: another van is waiting for me at the engineering department, where all the vans are fixed. Oooofff.
18:30 - Dinner is served on campus (loads of rice with a broth), yet McNoodles is the place to be. I chat a bit with Jimbo, a cool Spanish guy, over a glass of Cambodian fresh lemon ice tea. The best!
Blandine has spent the afternoon shopping in downtown Phnom Penh and has brought me a notebook, the paper "old school" version. Handy - scratch that - necessary when the netbook is being repaired in Bangkok. We'll have it back in 3 weeks.
20:00 - I'm happy to go to sleep, yet the long hot day has one more thing in store for us all: a surprise birthday party for Lucia Lanuza in the breakfast room of the J-building. It's celebrated Cambodian style, with lots of sweet donuts and coca cola. Sweet donuts for a sweet girl, it's meant to be.
21:30 - Tired, I crawl back to my room at the guesthouse for a shower, then I crawl into bed. I can't afford to go to sleep too late from now on, as of tomorrow my days start at 5:45AM. It's gonna hurt any way I turn it.
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