Funeral Weekend Cabin Fever

Sunday 3rd February marked four years since I landed in Phnom Penh. That first morning I woke to the crash of cymbals outside and went to stand out on the balcony, feeling the waves of tropical heat rise up from the street below, where Chinese dragon dancing welcomed me to my first morning in Cambodia ‘Right, here I am’ I smiled to myself and went off to explore, alone.

Four years later and I marked the weekend by joining hordes of white-shirted mourners for King Norodom Sihanouk’s funeral procession. I lined up at the portaloos on Sihanouk Boulevard with them (actually very clean, puts UK festival portaloos to shame). I flapped my little Cell-card sponsored orange fan around pointlessly in front of my face with all of them.

When the procession came along, I adopted the same excruciating, kneeling –on- concrete position. I craned my neck with them all to see the procession – and very impressive it was too -except the two floats which had green mesh and loads of plastic animals tied to it. That part was really strange and tacky. They weren’t even animals native to Cambodia.

Later I asked my fiance what that bit was all about and he said he wasn’t sure but maybe to represent tourism. Still I am bewildered by the plastic kangaroos in place of which I had been led to believe should be real life elephants and monkeys.

Anyway, I was glad I had braved the crowds to go and see it but after it all I was ready to go back to my apartment away from all the crowds. It was during the rest of that weekend, whilst looking forward to some peace in my apartment that I actually felt a bit penned in.

I felt a sense of cabin fever setting in. As the nation mourned and reminisced on the life and times of their national hero, I found myself doing a bit of personal reminiscing on the course my own life had taken since I landed in Phnom Penh four years ago.

I surprised myself by feeling an almost overwhelming, desperate pang of nostalgia that bought on a sort of panicky mental back-tracking. I yearned for those first few months when the world around me was a completely new world – for those days when I had absolutely no attachments and no reason why I couldn’t go anywhere I like and do whatever I wanted.

I am ridiculously happy with my life and extremely excited about my future. I think what I experienced last weekend was a little bit of mourning for a selfishly carefree existence that very soon I will be – albeit completely willingly -casting aside in order to get married and start a family. As the happy group photos from our engagement show, the union of my freckly clan with my fiance’s high cheek-boned family is a union of families. More than that, of course I recognize, marrying a Cambodian means marrying their family.

It was my decision to invite my fiance’s nephew to come and stay with us. I think I probably said ‘until you get yourself set up’. I saw this lovely, polite young man playing the father figure to quite a few younger siblings. They were living in ultra-cramped conditions and he seemed the easiest person to take out of the mix in order to free up some space.

He was working until 11pm at a restaurant that his Mum also worked at. I have a three bedroom apartment and his Uncle had become important person in his life since he moved to Phnom Penh a year or so ago and so it seemed only natural to invite him to live with us. He changed jobs to a restaurant nearer us but he is still at work or out playing football most of the time plus he gets his meals at work so no kitchen responsibilities are needed, and he is always happy; football and fashion crazy and a bit ditzy but he is a genuinely sweet kid.

However………those days of solitary balcony peace are gone. There is a lot of singing going on and sometimes my headphones disappear upstairs for a few hours. Last weekend, when I was immersed in this fear of ‘The End of Lone Time’ was when tiny, inconsequential things that shouldn’t bother me suddenly did.

I was the one that said eat what you like from the fridge and I very rarely have much stocked in there except when I get in some weekend brunch supplies. So I started the weekend a little stressed to see a certain 21 year old lazing on the sofa, watching football on TV and gnawing his way through a pack of uncooked English breakfast muffins. I could have overlooked it apart from the fact that they must taste absolutely rank uncooked.

After a few Saturday drinks the next morning I woke up at 7am to singing – really nasal, grating K-pop singing. I manage to ignore it. Then later that day I came home to most of bottle of red wine drunk. There were plenty of beers in the fridge. I had to draw the line at my weekend wine being consumed. “Boys drink beer’ his Uncle informed him quite clearly later. I reiterated the point with the softly authoritarian tones of a sisterly Auntie – or so I thought- “You can always have a beer…. but the wine….it’s mine”.

It only took a few words and a little chat about how he may be able to sort things out for himself to get a little place with his eldest sister in a few months to set things straight. He understands, he’s a poppet and he is 21 and he is trying his best.

On Monday a few friends and I drove across Chrouy Chongvar Bridge and parked up next to the half-built Sokha hotel to have a few beers and watch the cremation shenanigans across the river. We got there in time to watch the sun turn orange and settle slowly against the royal palace across the water. Sitting in a small group on the other side of the water we heard the canons blast across at us and watched the little figures standing on top of the Sokha hotel letting off fireworks in reply. After that there was a silence and we watched smoke rise from the funeral pyre. From this new, distanced perspective everything fitted itself right in my mind.

I don’t need to give up that part of that needs to be alone. I need to find those times again. Go out and have an iced coffee, a walk, a fruit shake by myself. Realise too that a certain point of my life is ending because I am lucky enough to have found a lifelong partner and that starting a new family is a whole new adventure awaiting me as an individual who stands alone as herself even in the midst of a big extended family. I think it is only healthy to keep a certain selfishness inherent though to stave off the bitterness late in life.

I am marrying into a Cambodian family but my partner is also marrying into a Western family. But really what is important is that we are marrying each other and we understand each other and how each other tick. Sacred will be my walks, runs and sunrise coffees. They may just be getting a bit fewer and far between but that’s absolutely fine by me when I think of what lies ahead.

Anna Spencer