Water-Breast-Cow (in Roger’s Car) (With Dara)

Khmer lessons are currently our raison d’etre in K. Cham. They dictate the time we get up in the morning (6.30am for some, or significantly later for those with afternoon classes), they keep us busy for 4 hours in the day, restrict how far we can wander and still be back in time to do the homework, fill our daily conversations and even nightly dreams with lists of incomprehensible and half-remembered words, and, most noticeably, dictate the number of cans of 75cent Angkor beer which are enjoyed by the river after dinner.

The importance of the latter is not to be underestimated as the 15 or so volunteers who regularly frequent one lady’s make-shift bar (an ice box surrounded by plastic chairs and tables) are probably trebling, if not quadrupling, her monthly income. Volunteers – we’re just always thinking about ‘the community’.

Beer-economics is a delicate point and dependent on 2 variables:
1) How well or badly today’s class went.
2) How difficult tomorrow’s is likely to be.
I.e. if today’s class has gone particularly well, concerns about tomorrow’s are likely to be less and more beer is drunk. If today’s class has been difficult but just about manageable, less beer will be drunk because more studying will be done with the hope that tomorrow’s brain-pain can be lessened. If, however, today’s class has been truly horrific, plenty of light relief is needed to recover and the amount of beer drunk rises sharply again regardless of how much worse this will make tomorrow’s class. Like I said, it’s a finely balanced science.

To suggest that anyone in the group finds Khmer easy would be ridiculous. Both vowel and consonant sounds require oral acrobatics (no jokes please) that most English-speaking tongues need years to master. Therefore, to expect us to be able to explain concepts such as vegetarianism after just 6 lessons when vegetarianism isn’t even understood in Cambodia even when explained by a native Khmer speaker, is rather ambitious (and yes, I’m looking at you with your unrealistic expectations Veary!).

There are, however, a few saving graces of Khmer which give me some reassurance that reaching a conversational level is possible. Firstly, tenses are quite loose and the future and past are often referred to simply by clarifying the time about which you’re speaking. For example, ‘yesterday, I go to Phnom Penh’. Secondly, it is generally a logical language. For example, ‘milk’ is ‘teuk-doh-ko’ or ‘water-breast-cow’. Makes sense really doesn’t it? So, in similar logical fashion, ‘morning’ is preuk so ‘tomorrow morning’ is preuk sa-ike (morning-tomorrow) and breakfast is ahaa-pail-preuk (meal-time-morning).

So, in class, anticipating the sentence I’ll next be asked to translate, I sit waiting and practicing the tongue-twister in my head (e.g. rol-preuk, neu-pail-preuk, kñom ñam ahaa-pail-preuk neu p’teh pon-tai pii-preuk-min kñom ñam ahaa-pail-preuk neu po-chaa-nee-ya-taan – throw in a few more preuks for extra-measure because Cambodians like repeating their words). After so much mental practice, I could, at least by how it sounds in my head, convince even King Sihanouk himself that I’m really an over-grown Khmer who’s just used too much skin-whitening lotion. However, unsurprisingly since I’m nothing but a Yorkshire girl with not a hint of a knack for languages, the stuttering, babbling jumble of words that fall out of mouth when I’m finally stared down by our teacher, Dara, doesn’t even resemble the shadow of what it was meant to be.

Nevertheless, after stumbling over every word, there’s a small feeling of relief a few syllables from the end of the phrase. Unfortunately, Dara all too often jumps in at this point to make the sentence longer with a completely unrelated “in Roger’s car going to the VSO office in Phnom Penh on street 214 near the hospital.” Another few desperate-sounding approximations of Khmer words later and you hear added “With Dara.” Always, always “with Dara”. And probably his bloody “song-saa” too.