Another Sunday with His Excellency

Sunday, October 7, 8:00am. I had woken up maybe ten minutes earlier (you tend to get up early here since the work day during the week starts at 7:30 or 8:00). My cell phone rings. It's His Excellency (Note: if you have not read about His Excellency, you may find background materials here). He again wanted my company for breakfast. With not much else to do for the day, I readily accept, meeting him downstairs after a quick shower and getting dressed.

Unfortunately, the Lexus was not around, so we stepped down a notch or two and took the Toyota Corolla, in which there is no DVD player or rear-view camera. After a short drive we arrived at a packed restaurant. Cars and trucks with government plates lined the sidewalk and a policeman assisted with parking. Entering the lavish two-story restaurant, I realized I was the only westerner around and, as a result, I attracted a few stares. There wasn't an open table in sight, but in an adjacent room, His Excellency spotted his wife, daughter, son-in-law, and two grandchildren (who are three and five). They had already ordered and started eating, but we joined them nonetheless, pulling extra chairs in to a now cramped table.

The menu is only in Khmer, so I order the same as everyone else: a traditional Cambodian breakfast not unlike pho, a broth with noodles, vegetables, and an assortment of meat. The three year-old, who looks more like a budding Hispanic soccer player than Cambodian with his long, curly hair, smiles at me. As he does when Shanti or I enter or leave the house, he begins waving incessantly. The difference now, though, is that he is two feet from me and I am neither coming nor going. The whole family is amused. Anyways, the meal was quite nice, though the pho's interesting amalgamation of meat was not exactly to my liking.

With wife in tow, we got back in the Corolla and started towards the house. On the way we dropped His Excellency's wife, who is fantastic, at the market to do some shopping. We continued on our way to the house and drove right by it. I had no idea where we were going.

Several minutes later I asked His Excellency, in Khmer, where we were headed. He asked me if I had any plans for the rest of the morning. I replied in the negative and, in broken English, he informed me we were going to the Ministry of Education to partake in his weekly game of petanque, the French version of bocce, or lawn bowling. His track suit now makes more sense and it came back to me that in addition to serving the National Assembly, His Excellency is in fact President (and Chief Accountant) of the Cambodian Bowls Federation. It is hard to describe my delight at this moment.

We turned into a particularly sketchy alley, made a few turns, and arrived in a parking lot. I stepped out, not sure what to expect. In front of me was an assortment of perhaps twenty-five senior Cambodian men spread across three petanque courts (I use the term courts loosely, as they were an assortment of rocks enclosed by molding wooden boards). The men were joking with each other, smoking cigarettes, and some drank a non-water substance (cough, cough, whiskey) from a water bottle even though it was only ten in the morning. I cursed myself for leaving my camera at the house.

I watched a game of the premier players. I was enormously impressed with their play, both in their ability to get the metal balls within inches of the jack, as well as their ability to, from a distance of ten to fifteen feet, strike an opponent's ball with their own in the first shot. Though I was secretly rooting for His Excellency because of his leadership in the Cambodian Bowls Federation and for his bringing me, he was easily the worst among the group. He wasn't bad, per se, but his skill did not come close to matching the others he was playing with.

After a few games as spectator, I was itching to give petanque with my new Cambodian friends a try. I was appointed 'pointer,' the first player to shoot, attempting to get as close to the jack as possible. In this capacity I held my own. When forced to be the 'hitter,' however, the player who must hit an opponent's ball away from the jack, I failed quite miserably and, as a result, instantly gained greater respect for the skill of the players I was amongst.

All in all, a fantastic morning. I can honestly say that playing petanque with a variety of government officials was not an activity in which I anticipated participating in during my tenure in Cambodia.