Breakfast with His Excellency's Grandchildren

His Excellency has a number of adorable grandchildren spread across Cambodia. One of them, who is about ten, lives in Sihanoukville and can speak basic English fairly well. When Shanti and I first arrived in Phnom Penh, she was instrumental in ensuring that we had some semblance of an idea of what was happening around us. On a recent trip to Phnom Penh, she expressed the desire to practice her English with us. We invited her to join us for chocolate chip and corn muffins and some chatting in English last Saturday morning.

On the morning in question, however, she was nowhere to be found. Having bought juice and just baked a dozen muffins, we went looking for her. While we were unable to find the Sihanoukville granddaughter, we did find His Excellency’s Phnom Penh grandchildren, a charming five year-old girl and a rambunctious three year-old boy.

The five year-old is adorable. She wears cute dresses, always has her hair done nicely, and just as frequently a smile on her face. She is learning English and from rote memory goes through the entire alphabet, “A is for Apple, I spell A-double P-L-E.” Her younger brother, whose curly mullet makes him look more like a Latin soccer player than a Cambodian, is a total enigma. Though initially shy, he now enjoys such activities as riding around his bicycle naked and saying “Bye-bye” to Shanti and me in an extremely deep voice over and over.

Anyways, the two of them came up and quickly made a mess of our table. A bite of this muffin, a bite of that muffin, a sip of juice, and then it was off to play. First it was our guitar, which the little boy strummed with no regard for the strings. Next it was soccer and badminton on the terrace, and after that it was sitting on the hammock, and then it was back to soccer and sliding around on the terrace. Within a half hour I was exhausted, so I told the kids five more minutes. Five minutes later, it was one more minute, and then one more minute, until we had been playing for an hour and a half.

The following day, at the first sight of us, His Excellency’s grandchildren invited themselves upstairs for another bought of soccer, guitar, sliding on the terrace, and sitting in the hammock. Though we had things to do, it took an hour to our free ourselves from the surprisingly strong grasp of a three year-old and a five year-old. And although we cannot communicate all that well, the kids absolutely love us and, I have to admit, it is kind of fun showing Cambodian kids how American kids play.

The concern now, however, is that any time His Excellency’s grandchildren catch sight of us, they’re going to want access to the Garden of Eden of our terrace. Earlier this week, when I was having one of my coworkers over for dinner, His Excellency’s grandson asked Shanti if he could come up and play when she got home. When she told him that he couldn't, he started to cry, "But I want to play with the Barang (Foreigner)," in Khmer. He, of course, proceeded to tell none other than His Excellency. Hopefully we’re still on his good side…