The Suburbs of Mongkol Borei

I visited Kim's family last weekend to see Seyhak and grandma.  Although I have made this trip many times, it's still difficult to distinguish their house from everyone else's.  I used to look for all the ducks in their front yard, but they sold them, and now it looks like every other house in the village.  There are certain landmarks that I look for.  They live between a pagoda and the bridge.  If I reach the bridge, I've gone too far and just turn around.  Well, I drove past their house again on this trip, and I heard Kim calling my name, so I turned around.  We all laughed at my mistake, and Kim asked, "Why don't you know my house?"  I said, "The houses look the same.  They're all a bunch of sticks with some aluminum on top."  I explained that often the houses in the U.S. look the same too, but we have numbers on them, so we can tell them apart.

Nobody has an address here, not even our school.  A person's address is something like: Go down the path, past the bridge, and turn left at the big plumeria tree. 

Seyhak is 5 months old now, so he wants to turn over, squirm, and move around.  Kim told me that he wakes her up at night.  She said, "Kerri, your Godson is so nasty.  (Cambodians mean naughty when they say nasty.)  He wake me up and punch me.  Oh, I get so mad."  I told her that he wasn't doing it on purpose, and since he's getting stronger, he wants to move around.  After she told me that he also fell out of the hammock and bumped his head on the ground, I suggested that they put him in their big orange cooler.  My humor was not appreciated.

Like any mother, Kim thinks her child is extremely gifted and smarter than other babies.  She proudly pointed out that he could hold the bottle by himself now.  "Look Kerri.  He so clever!"  I didn't mention that all babies his age can do that.

Recently, Kim told me that she gave Seyhak a cookie.  This information concerned me because he's teething and isn't ready for cookies.  I told her he should only eat soft foods.  She said, "But Kerri, he so clever.  He want to help my mom in the kitchen, and he grab everything and put it in his mouth."  Oh dear...  Where do I begin?  I had to explain that all babies want to touch everything and put it in their mouth; that's how they learn about the world.  And just because he wants to eat something, doesn't mean she should let him.  She looked doubtful at this advice, so I put it a different way.  I said, "He puts his toes in his mouth.  Do you want him to eat his toes?" 

When Kim told me that she fed Seyhak bananas, and he got diarrhea, I realized that this could become a big problem.  He could choke or get really sick.  She really had no idea what a baby should eat.  I made a list of what babies should eat at different stages during their first year, along with appropriate portion sizes.  I told her to slowly introduce soft foods.  She glanced at the list, picked up a mangosteen and said, "Look Kerri, he want to eat."  (A mangosteen is the size of a ping pong ball.)  I decided that a demonstration was in order.  I picked up a knife, cut a small piece off, mashed it up, and fed it to him.  Kim watched this, then proceeded to continue to hold the rest of the mangosteen in front of Seyhak's mouth, so he could suck it.  I realized that I was not making much progress here.  Kim is very stubborn.  She loves to boss people around, and give advice on every subject.  However, she rarely takes any advice or criticism herself.  (One time Cynthia grunted, "That's probably why her husband left her.")

Kim looked at my list again and said in a surprised manner, "Babies can eat all these foods?  Not just rice?"  I had listed boiled sweet potato, beans, peas, pears, etc.  I said yes.  She asked, "Is this what babies in your country eat?  Oh, they big and strong."  I said, "Yes, and don't you want Seyhak to grow big and strong too?"  I told her that the rice they eat only has carbohydrates which give energy, but it doesn't have the vitamins necessary to grow up healthy.  I made her promise to feed him a variety of foods, but not give him candy or anything sugary during his first year.

This whole episode was bizarre to me because I don't have children.  It seems like this sort of thing would be common sense, but you can't expect "common sense" in Cambodia.  Not in a country that is barely recovering from a long war and the loss of all the intellectuals.

Meanwhile, Kim's mother kept asking if she could make me some lunch.  I politely declined.  Kim knows I stopped eating rice a while ago, and she's been very concerned about this.  Her mom wanted to know what I could possibly eat instead of rice.  I listed off a bunch of items.  Then her mom asked, "Do you get full?" 

Kim and her mother also told me that I could take Seyhak back to the United States, raise him myself, and give him a good education.  They were serious.  I tried to make a joke about it and then quickly changed the subject.  Kim also suggested that when I retire I could move to Cambodia and live with her and Seyhak.  I thought, "Wow, that sounds horrible."  I decided it was more polite to just say, "Thank you."