Holiday With Tess Part II- Matt ditches Tess in the Speu

Ok it wasn’t as bad as that, but I had to go to Takeo province to help organize a handover ceremony of government rice (the government donated 2000MT of rice to WFP). It was meant to also be a ceremony for a visit of Princess Haya (Junior Queen of Dubai and Nikki tells me a total hottie but that fell through) .It was held at one of the partners working with people living with HIV , Partners in Compassion, but I have raved about them in a previous post.

We arrived the evening before to make help set up working till about 8 then having dinner. The next morning we set off at 6 to work some more but most of the setting up had been done. We just turned event managers and strategically positioned logos around the place. The guest of honour was a guy named Nhim Vanda , the head of the National Committee for Disaster Management. As you may have gathered he has nothing to do with HIV but he is known as the PMs right hand man so they thought it might be prudent to have him along. We knew he arrived when the police motorcade came through and out he popped shaking hands with pretty much everyone (except me boo hoo).

Anyhoo, I got stuck as a seat filler to sit in the official area and I have now been immortalized on national tv as I was on the cross shot of the main speaker. Unfortunately it was so hot my shirt was practically see through from sweat. Very embarrassing. The speeches were in Khmer but I had the highlights translated for me, including Nhim Vanda telling the people that even though using a condom doesn’t feel as good, you should use one anyway.

I then returned back to Kampong Speu and got all grumpy cos we had no clean clothes and we had a half hearted handwashing session. Then the next day...off to Siem Reap!

[As you have probably gathered these posts are being written a few weeks after the events - On Monday (25 June) a plane crashed on Bokor Mountain, Kampot Province on its way to Sihanoukville from Siem Reap. The passengers were mainly South Korean tourists but some Czechs and 5 Khmer. Everyone here is talking about it, especicially as it took a few days to find. Yesterday at lunch we were watching the broadcast of the first pictures of the crash. It is very worrying what it will do to the tourist market here, so many people depend on it and South Koreans are the biggest group. The company that flies the planes PMT Air has a history of problems and UN staff are forbidden to fly with them.]