Food, Fashion and Fast Cars (well actually, relatively slow motorbikes)

Part 2: The Fashion

Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the inaugural Phnom Penh Fashion Week. You thought it wasn't going to happen. But I'm here to tell you it is happening like the most Hip-Hop-and-Happening thing in Happeningville.

Let's have a look at what we have strutting along the catwalk today...


Pyjamas
None of this fancy-pants, Peter Alexander-esque lace-and-silk-business in various shades of beige and coffee, ladies and gentlemen. I'm talking 100% cotton, I'm talking primary colours, I'm talking elephants and puppy dogs, I'm talking poorly-translated English phrases. And Cambodia, do we wear out nightwear at night? HECK NO we don't! The number one choice for all stylish Cambodian ladies this summer (ie. pretty much all year) is matching pyjama sets, paired with a lovely sandal. And why wouldn't this be all the rage, ladies and gentlemen? It manage to tick all the required boxes: it's conservative (no unsightly cleavage or midriff), it's cool, its coordinated.


Face masks
How can one be hip and healthy at the same time? That's the question I seem to get asked the most. I'm here to give you the answer. The Phnom Penh-ians have got it down pat. Why suffer the formidable fumes of a city overrun with motos and pollution-pumping factories when you can block it out with a fashionable face mask? In hospital grade blue or pink, or fashionable Burberry patterning, this accessory is bound to keep you looking mysterious on the outside, and clean-lung-ed on the inside.


The Traveller

Ah yes, ladies and gentlemen. It's our highlight at the end of this evening's show- the traveller; in varying shades of manky, cringe, and thriftiness. Featuring prominently in this collection is a look that has been a staple for many seasons now: supremely floppy pants and skirts that, whilst seeming not only practical but also stunningly beautiful when bought at local markets for $5 ("Wow, I can wear this with x, y and z when I get home! They'll be so great!"), upon return home are suddenly seen under the harsh light of Western fashion, causing the buyers to recoil in "What the HELL was I thinking?!" horror.

The 3-for-$5 t-shirts are also doing very well this year amongst travellers. Some of the favourite slogans doing the round at the moment include:

- Same Same But Different (the catch-cry of the stall-holders at the market.)

- Angkor Beer

- Tin Tin in Cambodge

- I♥ Cambodia (don't we all? And yes we DO need to express it all over our breast.)

In addition to exploring the fruits of the Cambodian made-for-foreigners fashion industry, well-seasoned Westerners are incredibly forward-thinking and innovative when it comes to their clothing combinations. "Why yes, this IS the thirty-second time I've worn this shirt, but just look at the way I pair it with these shorts, tuck it in, and put a scarf around my middle! It's as if it's an entirely different item of clothing, no?"

And let's not forget our fragrance lines, ladies and gentlemen. This evening's models, a collection of well-meaning Westerners from various corners of the globe, are wearing Eau de Toilet (not to be confused with Eau De Toilette, this one truly lives up to its name), Cam-BO-dia-deodorant and the new CK one-shirt-six-days.


Signing off, Claire McEvoy, runway-side.

Papa's death

Papa died last week. I knew when Mum started talking to me, and it hit like a big fat punch in the guts. It still amazes me how visceral grief is in the acute phase.
It's been a strange few days. The news came during a time when homesickness was tapping me fairly gently but fairly annoyingly on the shoulder.
At times I can completely switch off. There are some really special people who are helping me feel pretty good. And the fact that Phnom Penh is the almost-polar opposite of Adelaide in a lot of ways has probably assisted in being able to be here and only here at times.
But when the thoughts of what's happening back home wriggle their way into my Cambodia-fied brain, they remind me that home ties aren't easily broken. And it hurts quite a bit.
In some morbid way, not being there for the funeral tomorrow is sort of like missing out on the party that all the kids will be talking about at school the next day because you piked out and went home early. But coming back home just didn't feel right. And I can't quite explain that entirely.
I am overwhelmed by the astounding web of information- and thought-sharing that the O'Callaghan Family has exhibited over not just the past few days, but the past few weeks. I am reminded of the strangely beautiful feeling I had around Nanna's death. That sense of solidarity in shared sadness, a figurative constant hand-squeeze.
And it's what Papa deserves, because he was a pretty amazing man. Sometimes we argued (well, mainly I argued, he was often just pot-stirring), but he was so good. And so interested in everything and everyone.
It's difficult to find the write words to get these feeling out, and I don't think I've done it particularly well; but I asked Damo to put a cardboard cut-out of me in his pocket at the funeral, and I just want the family to know that I'll be holding you in my thoughts and heart all day tomorrow....

Love Claire

Food, Fashion and Fast Cars (well actually, relatively slow motorbikes)

Part 1: The Food

Many of us volunteers had been warned by The Bible (Lonely Planet Guide) that Cambodian food was nothing to write home about. WELL JUST LOOK AT ME WRITING HOME ABOUT IT, LONELY PLANET! Supposedly Cambodian food is not as exciting or distinct as its Thai and Vietnamese next-door neighbours, but I am rejecting that notion. As a well brought up McEvoy Gal, I am experiencing this new and exciting country with not only open eyes and an open mind, but also a very open mouth. At the apartments, we are lucky enough to have some beautiful ladies who cook our lunches and dinners each day. As with a lot of Asian countries, rice is on the menu for most meals. It is accompanied by things such as stir fried vegetables and sliced meats, fish stews and curries. It is milder in flavour than other Asian cuisines, flavoured with lots of onion, lime, garlic and some chilli.

Street vendors pop up around every 7 metres, on average. The little push along carts have little glass compartments housing noodles, veggies, (occasionally dubious looking) meats, and a noodle soup or fried something-or-other can be thrown together for you in a flash. There are often tables and chairs set up on street corners to allow complete the outdoor-dining experience. Other carts sell the sugar cane drink that the locals sip from little plastic bags, which is made by churning the sticks of wooden-looking cane through a little mill until a lemonade-looking drink is squirted out for the thirsty punters.

Most volunteers come back home for lunch each day, but I stay at work. This has been a highlight of each day for me. The cook packs me a little polystyrene container each day, and I pop the surprise package in my bag. At lunch, all the lights in the physio gym get turned off, the little white coats that everyone wears are removed to allow the sweat on them to dry, and all the physios gather around one of the desks and bring out their home-packed goodies. Sharing is a big part of the Cambodian culture, so everyone's fare is placed in the middle ready to be scooped, slurped and picked at (Claire goes "Yes! These are my type of people!"). I've been keeping up pretty well with the delightful head physio Sarun, who everyone teases about being the one who finishes off all the leftovers at lunch! Sometimes the cooks at home prepare Western food as well, and I was pretty popular at work the other day when my container revealed fried bits of steak and chips with tomato sauce!

The break is an hour and a half for the Physio and P&O (Prosthetics and Orthotics) staff at VI, and after eating, the general thing is the guys sit around and watch the epic, long-running Khmer-dubbed Korean soapy set quite a few centuries ago concerning royals and soldiers (but not too different from Home and Away, basically), and the girls go into the blissfully air-conditioned meeting room, and put mats on the table (yep, not something you'd see back home too much in the boardrooms!) or floor and have a bit of a kip (or just a gossip). I have wholeheartedly embraced this Cambodian form of siesta, and feel much better for it in the afternoons at work!

Some of the new and exciting things to fill my tummy include:
- Bitter gourd- some form of zucchini, stuffed with minced meat, in a liquid
- Khmer "cheese"- actually no dairy, it's just that it stinks; it's made from dried fish mixed with... other... stuff...? and is a brown pastey substance- very strong, very salty, but I liked it!
- Preserved eggs: boil your water with stacks of salt, let it cool, chuck your eggs in and let 'em sit for the desired number of weeks. Cambodians are good at not letting surplus food go to waste, so eggs and fish are often preserved like this. Good for the girl with low blood pressure to up the old salt content!
- The most amazing array of fresh fruits! The bananas are lady-finger sized but delicious; ruby-red rambutans; lychees (think I could live on these); perfect mango, pineapple and watermelon. The fruit is so fresh and flavoursome, bursts from tiny market stalls in big bunches and is cheap as, bro.
- Little snail things that come from the river bed- they're tiny, you pull them out of the shells and it looks more like you've just picked your nose, you dip them in chilli sauce. One was fine, but one was enough for now.
- The delicious iced coffee they do here (Ma, it'd meet your Farmer's Union standards, I reckon)- condensed milk, a whole lot of ice, coffee poured over the top: de-bloomin-licious. I went down to one of the vendors out the front of VI yesterday with Kim and Sinoun, gorgeous P&O's, and Kim ordered it for me, so I'll have to make sure I get the right name for it to grab another sometimes; it set me back about 30 cents.

We've been out for dinner a couple of times, too, there are lots of places down along riverside that offer a mix of Khmer and Western cuisines, and it was kind of exciting to get a burger with my beer the other night! You can get a good quality meal and a drink for around $3-4. The beer that's widely-drunk here is Angkor, but there is a wide selection available, and they're a pretty good deal at around $1-a-pop on average. Lats night we had went to The Casino and felt pretty extravagant in the ritzy bar, paying $4 for a beer. A couple of the Irish lads here tried some home-made rice wine, thrust upon them by their tuk-tuk driver the other day. They likened it to nail-polish remover, and I think I might be OK not giving it a go.

In short: Claire McEvoy- loving life, loving the grub, loving the ales, loving the fun times that come from a shared meal!

FIVE things I have learned after FOUR days in Phnom Penh

1. People in different parts of the world have a different approach to traffic slash driving, and perhaps this can be used as somewhat of an analogy for different approaches to life
- Unlike Australia, Cambodians drive on the right hand side of the road... in theory. But really, sometimes it's just much more convenient to drive on the left hand side of the road.
- The death statistics when it comes to road accident are higher than I care to mention on this page, given the fact that my mother already has slightly elevated blood pressure.
- Despite this, Cambodian drivers are remarkably cheery in their disorganisation: no-one appears at all ruffled as a car drives towards them in the wrong direction, and multiple moto drivers quite often head for the same turn in the road at the same time, just loko at each other quite blankly, and then sort themselves out semi-awkwardly like year 8's at a social.
- A modified Simpson's quote can aptly sum up the general feeling:
Moto driver: I'm going to go like this...(drives motorbike on various sides of road)... and if you get hit, it's your own fault.
Car driver: Fine, I'm gonna start driving like this (starts turning across traffic because the desired street is more easily accessible that way)... and if any part of you should fill that air, it's your own fault.

2. I am not yet a master of Mindfulness
- I went to a meditation session with five of the other girls the other night at Wat Lanka
- We had be told that if we wandered in at 6pm looking like we didn't know what we were doing, a monk might be kind enough to show us the ropes, so to speak.
- We entered, definitely had the no-idea look going well, and voila- a very cool, chilled-out looking monk took us outside the beautiful temple, sat with us in the balmy evening, and talked us through Meditation 101: The Basics (a good start for all those "Hey! I've totally come to Cambodia to become all zen and stuff, so liiiiiike, can I get Zen To Go? K thanks!" travellers).
- One of the main points that stuck was this concept that nothing is permanent- not the good stuff, not the bad- so it's best to allow things to happen but look on them, rather than letting them affect the way we feel- there needs to be some sort of neutral state that doesn't get altered or phased too much.
- The physicalities of meditating were explained to us, then we ventured inside to give it a bash for the remainder of the hour. Should it be so hard to focus on my bloody diaphragm going up and down? Because I would not stop thinking about pretty much everything else apart from that, and that was all I really needed to do. "Hello, my name is Claire and I feel like my often-denied Type A peronality is holding me back from focusing on my inspiration and expiration."
- But I'll keep at it. If only because the chance to sit in a beautiful room with an evening breeze floating through and just chill out for a bit seems like a good thing.
- More diaphragm updates to come.

3. Nothing can stop a keen runner
- Not a distinct lack of green, run-friendly spots.
- Not a soupy, sticky, carbon-monoxide rich environment.
- Not motorbikes to manouevre around and tuk-tuks to
- Not being the only person (let along tall white girl) running in a busy city.
- Not various eager Phnom Penh-ians joining me for a few metres every few minutes and saying. things like "Very good! Hello! How are you?" (actually if anything that's a pretty fun addition to any run).
- Certainly not 100% humidity, causing run to be slowed to snail's pace despite heart working overtime.

4. Some people in this city live in really small houses, some people live in really big houses, not many people live in really middle-sized houses
- It's like you're either Papa Bear or Goldilocks, and Mama Bear doesn't even get a chair
- These two extremes can exist quite literally next to one another, with nothing but about 67,586 tons of concrete fence (complete with fancy gold ornate detail) separating the two.
- Corruption, especially involving the police force, is still rife, despite Cambodia generally being much more stable than previously.
- There are a lot of people with missing limbs, polio- healthcare doesn't often exist as a concept for them.
- I start work at Veterans International tomorrow and and not sure what to expect but looking forward to learning and hopefully lending a hand.

5. Fun people are found all over the world
- The volunteer crew here (currently around 17-20 across the four apartments) are really happy, enthusiastic, skilled, party-loving and excitable people from America, France, Canada, The Netherlands, Ireland, Japan, England and Denmark.
- There have been many shared beverages, shared stories and shared tuk-tuk rides already, and many more to come.
- But nothing beats a home crowd. I am missing Mile End times, family fun, McEvoy cook-ups, riding around the city; the amazing, the all-star, the always-in-my-heart Adelaidies-and-gentlemen.

Claire in Cambodia xox