Kindness
Apart from all the green in Koh Kong (best to read this after the last post), another thing that got me was a small, probably a minute at the most, moment of kindness.
I was sitting down, waiting for whatever we were all doing next, when one of the Khmer women saw that I'd cut my foot. It was only a small cut. Probably from scraping a rock when I was swimming in the sea earlier.
Anyway, soon about five other women were gathering round making concerned noises. It surprised me and made me laugh at the same time. The cut was a bit tingly and slightly bloody but nothing major.
To them, though, it was a big deal. And Tiger Balm was soon applied.
I said to them afterwards I wasn't used to such a fuss. My normal is to Keep Calm and Carry On with things like that (says she who walked around for 2 weeks this summer with a broken foot before getting it X-rayed...).
But like they all said, their normal is community. Doing things together. Looking out for each other. And the solidarity of kindness they showed me is just an everyday thing.
So that was a moment.
There were others too. Some funny. Some slightly disturbing (performing Orang Utangs in bikinis??? at Safari World). Some genuinely disturbing (same place - performing tigers being whipped to jump through hoops). Some therapeutic (river and sea swimming). And some wonder-full and restful, like these:
I was sitting down, waiting for whatever we were all doing next, when one of the Khmer women saw that I'd cut my foot. It was only a small cut. Probably from scraping a rock when I was swimming in the sea earlier.
Anyway, soon about five other women were gathering round making concerned noises. It surprised me and made me laugh at the same time. The cut was a bit tingly and slightly bloody but nothing major.
To them, though, it was a big deal. And Tiger Balm was soon applied.
I said to them afterwards I wasn't used to such a fuss. My normal is to Keep Calm and Carry On with things like that (says she who walked around for 2 weeks this summer with a broken foot before getting it X-rayed...).
But like they all said, their normal is community. Doing things together. Looking out for each other. And the solidarity of kindness they showed me is just an everyday thing.
So that was a moment.
There were others too. Some funny. Some slightly disturbing (performing Orang Utangs in bikinis??? at Safari World). Some genuinely disturbing (same place - performing tigers being whipped to jump through hoops). Some therapeutic (river and sea swimming). And some wonder-full and restful, like these:
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