Sylvia's Journal

Last night’s dinner in a Kampong Cham restaurant brought the finishing touches to a day full of culinary firsts. I had a few pieces of fried turtle. Apparently this animal is OK to consume here – but I don’t think I am going to do anything to jeopardize its existence. It tasted like jellied pork fat and the supposed delicacy of the dish escaped me.

I was overwhelmed by the enormous menu that looked like a children’s picture book. There was a rather gruesome photo of an entire goat, lying on its side, skinned, the bottom parts of its legs missing. I wondered whether I would get the whole thing if I ordered that. There were pictures of naked ducks and chicken, one the usual color, the other, a black chicken, its color an unappetizing grey, served on large plates. There were also pig innards tied into a sort of bow, and various kinds of fish, followed by pages and pages of soup dishes. Krisna helped me navigate the menu and ordered something for me that he likes a lot, a bright green sour soup with spicy beef. He asked me ‘how sour?’ and ‘how spicy?” and I replied ‘a little’ of each. In situations of uncertainty like this I always go for medium.

The green color in the soup came from Morning Glory I was told. I am not sure it is the same thing I was thinking off (purple and pink flowers on a vine), but it tasted good. I followed my table mates’ example by making a mixture of soy sauce, fish sauce and slices of fresh garlic (I left out the slices of red chilies) and adding this in teaspoons to the soup ladled over steamed rice. It was quite nice and filling.

After dinner Naomi and I were treated to a ride over the 2 km long bridge over the Mekong River, built by the Japanese. It was dark so we could not see much other than lights. We scouted out a few more restaurants since we will be having 9 more dinners in this town and apparently the restaurant of our hotel is so-so. We ended our evening on the town with an ice cream from the Caltex station mini mart.

I woke up to watch Obama’s first symbolic act of leadership on CNN as he addressed the White House staff about his expectations on ethical conduct. I was struck with the difference from Bush’s first symbolic act, the re-instatement of the Mexico City Policy that Clinton had rescinded, an act that was about ideology rather than good governance.

Buoyed by this inspirational start of my day, I watched my team getting itself ready for the work and was inspired some more. The team has taken full responsibility for the good conduct of the event and everyone knows their part in the playbook. But they are also fully engaged in each other’s work and jump up to help and pay attention. They took to mind mapping as fish to water and use it all the time now, for every session. I must say it looks quite beautiful in Khmer – these are works of art. And in the meantime I am standing by the side and glow like a proud mama at graduation day.

At break time I noticed that Rany from our team was repeatedly cleaning up after the men who stood around the table, dropping their trash (orange peels, banana leaves, crumpled tissues) right where they were standing even though boxes for the waste were right there. I could tell that Rany was not happy about this and I asked her whether she could say something about it. “Not me,” she said, “but you can.” And so I shared my observations with the group after the break and asked them whether, like in most places in the world, in Cambodia too women pick up after men. There was much laughing. I mentioned my Obama inspiration of the morning and how setting a good example is the leader’s task, and that improvement begins with I. People nodded their heads in approval, especially the women who had been picking up after the men. I told everyone I would be watching them during the afternoon break. We all did and to everyone’s great delight Rany’s services were no longer needed.

For lunch we ate in a separate dining room, off the main restaurant room that was filled to overflowing. One dish after another was put in front of us, fish, chicken (including its head and feet), beef and a soup with everything in it. I tried a little bit of everything, no culinary surprises. Over lunch I learned a few more words of Khmer to expand my vocabulary. I can now say, Let’s eat rice, I want some more rice, I like you, It was good, in addition to How are you, Thank you and Goodbye.

During our long lunch break I checked out the internet connection. It’s not only fast but also wireless, for 1 dollar an hour. Next to me a 5 year old boy was playing a complicated computer game that featured the Pentagon. I could not tell whether he was defending or attacking it but it was definitely under siege from an army of large and scary looking robots. The boy was putting statues willy-nilly around the target and drove tanks randomly through streets and parks. I don’t think he got the idea of strategy.

The team members are starting to correct each other, noticing when something is not quite right. As one would expect in this culture, there is considerable unease about being direct with one another and so I play the intermediary for now. Eventually they will need to find a way to give each other supportive feedback if they want to avoid the tensions and irritations that come from not saying something that needs to be said and feeling powerless to do anything about it.

I think I am also creating some unease about enforcing the norms that the group agreed on this morning. A few cell phones have been ringing but no one said anything about it. I mention that by not saying anything about a norm being broken, they are actually creating an implicit new norm that ‘the norms we agreed on this morning don’t need to be adhered to.’ Excuses are made for the people whose phones were ringing and I am told that it happened only a few times so it doesn’t matter. I suggest they use humor and do a light touch and remind them that the main purpose of their interventions is not punishment but helping the participants become more aware of their own behavior and discover whether it congruent with what they say they do. They nod and seem to buy my arguments with their head but something in their gut says no.