Monday 26 July 2010

Babore Chigai

Due to the fact that my job and my house are actually in very different places, I am forced to go outside at least twice a day, (more if it is one of the days when I also need to eat food).

Now this in itself doesn't seem like such a problem.
Although the additional factors attributed from living in one of the worlds dustiest sun traps, as well as owning the smallest petrol powered motorbike ever invented by man, do tend to make it slightly more of a struggle.

Now one thing that I will recommend to anyone who is planning to spend any amount of time on the road is decent eye protection.
Partly for the sun, after all squinting can severely lower your ability to see shit and as the majority of the local population seem to have no great attachment to signaling or lane discipline this can be problematic.

But the eye protection is also useful for trying to cut down on the amount of dust that's going directly into your eyes as your driving.
See in the west we are well aware that if you get your eyes full of dust this might be the cause of an eye problem. The same is not necessarily true out here.

See the other day for for whatever reason I had to go outside. In doing so had forgotten to put my sunglasses over my face before starting out on whatever arduous journey I had decided to undertake.

Needless to say upon my return as I was sat at my work desk inspecting my reflection in the
permanent sleeping computer screen that occupied about 60% of my desk, I realised I might have a problem. Or at least the tell tail warning signs of a future problem that would probably come to light at some point in the next few days.

Bad news.

Now back home I'd have referred to it as a sty.

Out here it has another name. A name that indicates the cause but not the cure.

Babore Chigai.

That's what the Chemist told me.
The direct translation means Stares at Dogs.

"You watch Chigai boom boom?"
enquired the chemist.
Apparently the reason I had this problem with my eye was because at some point in the recent past I must have watched 2 dogs having sex.

I refuted the Chemists assertion but did have to admit to the fact that several days prior when I'd been enjoying some down time at Wat Phnom I had indeed seen 2 small furry animals making the beast with two backs.

Not dogs though, Monkeys.
And to be fair I imagine that if you'd seen these hairy little bastards going at it hammer and tongue then you also would have cast an inquisitive eye over them.
(I mean their hands look like people hands.)

The Chemist took this as conclusive proof and gave me a small bottle of what I can only assume were her own tears.
Accompanied by instructions to drizzle the viscus liquid into my own eye as and when I see fit.

The most important thing was that under no circumstance should I watch any more animals having sex.

The way I see it is that the Chemist is not the boss of me and what I do in my spare time is none of her business.



On a related note the university I work for has decided to start monitoring Internet downloads as of Monday.

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