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On the riverside for sunset, I feel so sick, I can't make it home by walking or motorcycle taxi. For once I will sit down in a bicycle rikshaw. I figure the price will be 2000 riels [50 US cents].

So I say to the next rikshaw driver: "You take me home for 1000 riels [25 US cents]!"

He answers firmly: "Not possible, sir! Khmer people pay 1500 riels. But you barrang [westerner], so you pay 2000 riels."

I feel even sicker as his logic, so I agree dutifully and take the ride. But I make him stop and wait for me as I buy water at a grocery store.

At home, I tear off all dress, crash on the bed and listen to the sweet soothing hum of Panasonic airconditioning.

Norah watches me worriedly: "Hans, you are sick!"

"No!"

"Yes, you ARE sick! I go out to buy medicine."

"NO NEED!!", I scream loudlessly into the linen.

Gone she is.

I wake up from feverish dreams when she puts ice-cold towels on me.

"NORAHH!! You crazy! Too cold."

"No - good for you!"

"Why are the towels so cold? This is colder than our tap water. Did you mix it with icewater from the fridge?"

"Yes!"

Her shopping bag of medicine includes:

1) 1 pack of Paracetamol

2) 5 coconuts

She forces me to down three coconuts of juice and two Paracetamols, which she calls "Pará". While I labor on this task, she changes the ice cold towels several times. I scream when the chilly wet rags land on me. Funny, she continues to call towels "kromà"; a kroma is the Khmers' trademark chequered cloth, Khmers wrap their heads or babies into kromas.

I drift off into lala land. Next morning I feel a hand on my forehead.

"Still a little bit hot, my dear."

Two coconuts - now cold from the fridge - and two Paracetamols await me for an early breakfast in bed.

After that, my illness is basically gone and doesn't come back - just as my once healthy appetite for coconut juice.

Shooting

2 a.m., I am sound asleep. Norah wakes me up. "Did you hear  the shooting, Hans? Ten times! Not far!"

"No, Norah, I was sound asleep, but thanks for waking me up."

"NOT far!!"

Once awake, I trek to the bathroom. She follows me, staying in the door. "I don't know..."

She goes to the living room, turns on the light, opens the balcony door and walks out. The alarm of an ambulance can be heard. She says: "It's near the string of Khmer open-air restaurants up the road. 100 meters from here. I see the ambulance light."

I stand inside the room: "Do you think, after a shooting it's a good idea to turn on light and stand on the balcony?"

"OH NO!!" She rushes inside, closes the doors and switches off light.

In bed, she says: "Maybe they got drunk and started shooting."

"I don't believe Khmers need to get drunk to start shooting. Just watch their driving style."

"Okay, tomorrow we read the newspapers." Another ambulance is heard, before we fall asleep again.

Next morning Norah comes back from market: "They say, bad people stole money somewhere and ran away from police. In our road, police gunned them down."

The Boom Boom Room Mystery

On a moto we zoom through NGO land, a relatively pleasant part of Phnom Penh full of highly fenced villas housing not only many NGOs, but also GOs like the EU development agency.

"You see this", I ask Norah and point to a shop sign?

"'Boom Boom Room'", she reads - "HANS, WHAT IS THIS?!?"

"Norah, you don't know boom boom?"

"Ehm, hm, chaaah, but this is WHAT - a room for boom boom?"

I stop the moto in front of Boom Boom Room. "We go inside", I ask?

"HANS - what is THIS??"

I tell her that this is a shop for pirated audio CDs plus clothing. I explain to her that the manager seems to like hip hop and drum'n'bass and this music only consists of "boom-boom, boom-boom, boom-boom". This lesson earns me a slap.

For once it's a shop that keeps both of us busy. I study their catalog full of audio CDs and write the albums I need onto the order form; meanwhile, Norah browses the interesting, simple but refined skirts they have, and buys two. "The zipper is not stitched-in very well", she says, "but any tailor can fix this". It's 13 dollars per skirt - not a bargain by Phnom Penh standards, but the skirts look fresh and representable.

One day later I return to Boom Boom Room and get a CD that contains all my requested albums in MP3 format; it's 75 cents per album. At the same time, Norah returns to her tailor who cleaned up the zipper-stitching; it's 75 cents per skirt.

The Ring

Srei Tuj noticed it first. But she was too shy to speak to her good friend Srei Norah, to bring her such a heartbreaking news. So Srei Tuj dialled Srei Dah's mobile number, and yes - Srei Dah had seen it too, on that wedding we all attended two Sundays ago.

"We must warn Srei Norah", Tuj said to Dah.

Dah nodded into her second-hand Nokia.

"But what can we do", pondered Tuj, "I have no idea how to speak to Srei Norah."

Dah: "But she must know it. The sooner the better."

Tuj: "The sooner the better."

"OK", said Dah courageously, "I will try to explain it to Srei Norah."

Norah and I just sat down on the grass in front of the Royal Palace, when Norah's second-hand Nokia whinged it's usual silly ring.

"Norah? It's Dah. You know what..."

I saw Norah's face getting super-pale and shocked!

Srei Dah said with a low voice: "Can I tell you some very very bad news? I don't want to hurt you, but I think you should know. Srei Tuj saw it, too."

Norah now got this intensely serious look, as if the course of her life might change. She bit on her lips, her upper body moved up and down, and she spoke only little.

Dah continued: "We found out that your boyfriend Mr. Hans is married already."

Norah abruptly turned away from me, put her arms around her legs and formed a closed box. They talked a little more when -

- SUDDENLY! Norah EXPLODES into laughter, she shrieks and claps on her legs, she grins at me like a paid clown, her face lightens up 10 f-stops, she beams all over. A few sentences later, she says "liahoay" and hangs up.

What had happened? Dah informed Norah that I was married already, and it would be better to move away from me quickly. Dah went on that Tuj had the same evidence. Norah recounted:

"You know, they saw the RING on your finger. So they thought you are married, and felt so sorry for me. They thought I didn't see that ring. But of course, this ring is from me, you wear MY ring, so no need to worry!!"

She beams like a child on Christmas eve.

 

© Hans Meier