A day in the life of Tim (27¼ years old)

After last blog’s somewhat heavy-in-the-stomach discussion of the history of the Khmer Rouge (yes I did notice it got a lot less discussion on social media than normal!), I think this one should be a little fluffier. So here is an excerpt from my fictitious diary on a typical day in the field.

06.15 – alarm rings and I grudgingly get up and shower (if at home with cold water, if in a guest house in the field blessedly warm) before grabbing my research satchel and heading out. I feel proud to be up ahead of the world, until I open my door and remember that this is not early in a society where most people get up no later than 5.30 (or even earlier) and actually I should feel bad for sleeping so long.

07.00 – meet Duong who is inevitably well-breakfasted and I am not as I want to lose weight. But to be honest, the allure of soup with chicken and noodles at 6.30 in the morning escapes me anyway. We hop on his moto (Khmer for moped) and trundle off through more or less busy streets of whichever town we are staying in. The journey now can be anywhere between twenty minutes and two and a half hours, depending on where we are going.

07.45 – pull up in front of a small house on stilts and fend off barking dogs and pass a couple of oxen to greet some puzzled looking people. Hardly anyone refuses to talk to us outright, so we are invited to sit on a low flat wooden structure which you could happily confuse for a hugely outsized coffee table, but is actually a bench on which Cambodian families sit, prepare food, lounge, and do everything on.

07.50 – after some small talk the recording device and notebooks are pulled out of our satchels and we launch into an interview.

09.30 – ‘thank you very much,’ we say and leave a very small token of our appreciation in the form of a couple of cans of condensed milk. And back onto the moto for a relaxing drive (sorry, I correct, bottom-crunchingly, back-grindingly bumpy ride along dirt roads) to the next interviewee on our list. We have a small de-brief while we drive, normally along the lines of ‘Well that was interesting, but I don’t think he’s hiding much and I don’t think we’ll need to return here anytime soon.

10.00 – we arrive at interviewee number 2 for the day and are reliably informed by his wife that sorry he is at the rice field and we can’t speak to him. Can we go visit him there? No, not really, but come back later? Yes, of course, around 2 or 3 would be good.  So off we hop, wondering if it was just an excuse or whether the person was genuinely not there.

10.45 – we arrive at interviewee number 3. Or so we thought. ‘Nope, sorry, who are you looking for? No, no, sorry, don’t know her. So we drive on a couple of houses. ‘Oh yes, we know her. You go along there and then turn off………. *check phone discreetly while Duong handles the directions*’  Well now it is nearly 11 and that means that they will be getting into lunch mode for half past eleven (remember they got up very early!), and you don’t want to be interviewing someone who would rather be eating.

11.00 – so we break for lunch ourselves. I look at the food briefly wondering how I thought it would be a good idea to remain vegetarian while living here. On the intricacies of this stupidity I’ll blog another time I think. We eat, we discuss the morning’s interview, sort out organisational things and plan the afternoon and then off we go again.

12.10 – after driving through the same village three times at last we find the right dirt track and the next person’s home and settle in for our next chat. It is getting hot now, it is midday and I’m careful to make sure I find a place in the shade and have a bottle of water with me. Not my prime time right after lunch any day, but dehydrated and with sunburn would not do my concentration any favours.

14.00 – wow, that went on a long time; she really did have an eye for details. A lot of details. But there were nuggets of interesting information in there and she agreed for us to be able to come back again sometime to continue our conversation.

14.30 – back to the person who was supposed to be back from the rice field. He’s not. ‘Are you sure we can’t go to him on the rice field?’ ‘Oh, of course, not a problem’ And so some little granddaughter or great-grandson is magically brought forth to guide us there, cycling on a bike which may be the right size in five or six years, but now is quite comical. And we follow, pootling along on our moto, me feeling quite pleased that this takes the edge out of the potholes.

14.45 – is that a canal we have to cross to get there? Please no! No, he’s coming over. Now I just feel bad, why should he have to wade through the water? Anyway he’s here now. Next time we’ll cross to him. Interview commences, squatting by a rice field, maybe behind a bush for shade, maybe by a tree.

16.30 – well that was interesting. Food for thought in that interview. Now it is only an hour or an hour and a half until sundown. No point looking for anyone else now, as I don’t like driving at night – and Duong doesn’t either. It is dangerous because we may be hit by cars, or targeted by robbers, or just not see a pothole and experience more pain than really necessary.

17.15 – back at guesthouse and time to take a shower and wash off the dirt and grime of the day. Check my emails and answer them pronto. Write my journal (not the teenager type, a research one), although I’m not nearly as diligent at this as I should be.

18.30 – dinner at a local place. Normally a place with a menu, not just pots offering up the various treats they have to sell. It’s often fried rice for me, but sometimes I get lucky and there are fried vegetables on the menu. We chat, we eat, we feel exhausted.

19.15 – back at the guesthouse and I feel like it’s midnight. But now the field research is done, I settle into my room for the evening. A skype or two for Beyond Violence (the web platform that I manage), finishing off those emails from earlier, reading some articles for a paper I’m co-authoring, a phone call or skype home. Or sometimes just lie on my bed and read a book or watch a series or film. Because I’m tired. It’s been a long day.

23.00 – if I haven’t drifted into the land of dreams by now, this is the time to go to sleep. Because tomorrow morning that alarm will be ringing again, bright and early. 

Below a couple of pictures of me 'in action' - conducting an interview next to rice fields, and sopping wet having been caught in a storm somewhere in the middle of nowhere!