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with the difference from Bush’s first symbolic act, the re-instatement of the Mexico City Policy that Clinton had rescinded, an act that was about ideology rather than good governance.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.
She held the lotus stems and seedpods like a bouquet. I only knew them in their dried form as used in flower arrangements with the seeds missing. These were green, just picked and the olive sized seeds still firmly in place.
Prateek had told me about them. A young woman offered grilled ones on a tray while live spiders were wriggling in a bucket by her feet. They were rather large with bodies the size of a bottle cap and about 3 inches in diameter. They tasted very much like soft shell crab, a delicacy for me, so I had another one while Naomi and Leonard were busy documenting what they considered either an act of courage or lunacy. And there was more. As soon as I had finished eating the spiders the cricket lady showed up. This time I had only one, which was also tasty, although these three little snacks left me thirsty because of all the salt. 
It seems that slowly we are all converging on one meaning for one word or concept. Instead of a 10 minute explanation for one English word, we are now getting it in a couple of minutes and I take that to be a good sign. We have covered all the basic concepts and terminology and are ready to practice the exercises that go with them. This is how the facilitators are slowly easing to the front of the classroom.
Before Prateek showed up I tried another new breakfast, this time something with tender beef in a spicy orange-brown sauce, served with French bread. There is a breakfast menu that says ‘Breakfast Menu’ in English but what follows is writtten in Khmer and Chinese. Aside from the indecipherable script there are also symbols after some of the menu items that I’m curious about, like a perching bird and a rose. They are like the pictures of chili peppers that indicate spicyness (one, two or three) but I can’t figure out what birds and roses stand for. 
I have started to ask the waiter to bring me something I haven’t had yet. After breakfast I worked for a few hours on stuff that has nothing to do with Cambodia but needed to get off my to do list.
The translation of concepts like inspiring and aligning is challenging, especially if the meaning is not entirely clear. Keo took three bananas and illustrated ‘alignment’ by telling us it meant cutting the ones that stuck out down to the size of the shortest. He had a point but the ‘cutting down’ was not quite what I had in mind. Staying with the fruit theme I took the bowl of tangerines and indicated that if they moved out of alignment they’d all show up in a different corner of the room. So I lined them up and pushed them forward: moving forward in a line. Then someone asked, “Is it unity?” We were getting closer. I replaced some of the tangerines with bananas, papayas, dragon fruit and lychees to show that it was unity of purpose, not sameness or alikeness. After that they told me they understood but could not agree on the Khmer words to use. Getting to understand inspirinig also took a while; for that there appears to be a word. This is going to be a challenge and a half. The day long practice was humbling and served as a very useful diagnostic to all parties involved. 
Mopeds are everywhere, zapping around cars and each other like mosquitoes. Trying to cross the street is a most frightening experience. There are very few pedestrians I can follow and learn from – everyone is motorized.
The minibar has soybean milk, grass jelly drink, Pulpy C (lychee with jelly and fruit) and Tiger beer. The latter I recognize and am grateful for after the dryness of Dhaka. There are also two large tubs with the ramen noodles and small packages with ‘flavorings’ (variations on salt) that you can pour water over and turn into a meal. That was dinner.
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