An Insider Writes

Intoducing our new columnist: top ‘foreign expert’ and close chum of Cambodia’s new money elite, Tobias Oliveira Slingshote writes exclusively for Khmer 440.

Hello everybody! Before I start I just want all the readers on this board to know that I love Cambodia. I love Cambodia. LOVE IT, LOVE IT, LOVE IT!!!! Give me a little bit of Cambodia, just a bit, I LOVE IT!

I feel better that I got that off my chest. My name is Tobias Oliveira Slingshote but you can call me Toby. I hope you become my friends and also understand where I am coming from.

I have been in Cambodia for some time now, I think about four or five years. I started off working for an NGO that wrote really important self help guides on coal mining in Cambodia. We wrote fascinating critical studies and managed to raise lots of funds from various organizations. United Sothiopathic Agency gave us money, so did Europhile Eloping Division and we got three million dollars from the Worlds Most Gullible Bank and a team of experts in doing nothing from The Asiatic Dependless Bank.

All in all we managed to raise almost $4.5 million dollars to do our feasibility studies and workshops. Unfortunately all the money got lost but I made a lot of really good friends. The donors were not too worried and said that it was the fault of ‘Cambodia’s difficult economics’ and a lack of proper workshop facilities and besides if I was to need money on ‘Mink Whale Procreating in the Gulf of Kep’, I should just call them. They have funds waiting for that study apparently.

So I then got a call from a man who owns Angkor Wat. He wants to build small micro-light airplanes out of bamboo and snot. He says that the tourists will have to ride the planes around the temples or get sent to Poipet in a minibus with a man named Gordon Sharpless if they don’t. I think the plan is a winner so I am excited to work on it, he says he will pay me lots of money just as long as I say nice things about him.

Anyway, the man has lots of sons and they enjoy a really wonderful life in Phnom Penh and now I am allowed to spend time with them.

All the sons own big cars. I love big cars and want to have one when I am grown up. One of my friends asked me to go for a drive in his Lexus. The Lexus is black and shiny and amazing. I love it. I especially love it because it has powerful people in it and that makes me feel safe. Like when I am with mummy. I don’t think I should talk about that though. So my new friend told me we would go out on a Friday night.

On Friday we met up and ate lots of grilled meats at a wonderful restaurant filled with pretty girls. We all drank a lot of beer and one of my friends grabbed the boob of the waitress! We all thought it was very funny. The waitress didn’t look happy but my friend said she was very happy. I believed him! After a while we decided to leave the restaurant. My friend drove and he drove very fast indeed. We all thought it was funny to see the poor people jump out of the way. My friend promised he likes poor people (he said he actually talked to one once), but I think they smell funny.

Suddenly my friend drove into the back of a banana seller. I did not see what happened as my head became thrust up the arse of another of my new friends. However, the driver (my new friend) told me what happened afterwards. Apparently, the banana seller was horribly hurt so my friend decided to put him down with his gun.

He has an AK-47 (which I think are guns made by Americans which means they are good!) and it makes a lot of noise. I like the noise of guns and think that it is great that all my friends get to use them. It makes me feel safe, like the time that Daddy gave me caramels and then asked to see my…..Maybe I shouldn’t talk about that. Anyway, my friend was a little drunk so he decided to show the crowd of poor people how the gun worked. Unfortunately he missed the sky (which was a very difficult target, he told me later, and I believed him) and hit some other people.

I thought this sounded bad until my friend explained that Cambodia is very different from other countries and that I shouldn’t judge it by the standards of my own, I am from the West although I like to pretend I am not. He told me that the people who died were lucky because his Daddy would give their families money. In a few minutes the dead people had earned more money for their families than they would have their whole lives.

They were poor so they probably didn’t enjoy their lives much anyway. I thought this was wonderful and that my new friend was a good man! However, I was worried that the police might come and my friend would get into trouble!

My friend explained that this wouldn’t be a problem. He said that the police were very understanding and that the courts like rich people in this country. If there was a problem they would just wait a long time or make up a wonderful story that everyone would believe. Although he did say that stupid foreign people would probably complain along with some man called Sad Rampy, but we shouldn’t worry if they didn’t believe our story. I was so excited that no one would get into trouble. Cambodia is such a great place. I love it. I LOVE CAMBODIA. And I really love my friends.