Thida's Blog, Mic's Blog: The First Phase of my Life, Post 1

During the maternity period, my family—my parents and a little me—stayed at my uncle’s house near Phsar Jhas. After that, we came back to our home in Kompong Cham province. The first 3 years of my life was spent in a wooden house which my parents rented from a family in the neighborhood. On the fourth year, we moved to a new bungalow which was built under the supervision of my dad. 90% of it was made from wood. It is sited on a piece of land which is 10m in length and 42m in width. My father is a doctor, he built the house cleverly. Some parts were reserved for patients who would stay in the house overnight or more than that. He was very famous in his job that was why he gained lots of trust and confidence from distant people. He made good money, and at the same time, helped many patients. I could not remember how my first 1,461 days were spent maybe I did something typical as other kids did. After 4 years with mom and dad, my grandparents came and took me to live with them (according to what I was told). That was the time when my little brother was born.

Life with granny was simple and comfortable indeed. We made our living by selling many things. I helped her with that stuff, actually what I did was not helping her, you can imagine. I got up in the mornings and cried because I slept in the ceiling alone. When I got up and looked up the roof there were three holes which looked a lot like a human face—not human but ghost. And every morning grandma shouted from downstairs ‘get up and come here! Your breakfast is ready.’ As usual, the breakfast was a pair of oil fried ghosts (Char Kuay) and a small cup of hot milk-coffee. I always wondered how I could get a mug of iced milk coffee. Every so often we had bread instead of oil fried ghost. Later on, I realized one painful truth about life, “You earn less, you spend less”. Besides selling those things, my granddad owned a small orchard growing lime trees. Yet, the land is along the Mekong River that’s why it is frequently flooded, and everything was in ruin. We needed to grow again next years.

I clearly remember the time I was sent to school. On the first day, grandma woke up earlier than ever. She helped putting on my uniform and brushed my hair. And then I asked her who would be my teacher, she just said you would see. I was very curious. We took a detour to save time. We walked through a house in front of my granny’s. We made our way to an open space which was in the school lot. We did not go straight to the class; my grandma took me to have breakfast. That plate of rice costed 300 Riels. My grandma gave the 500 Riels note and was given back the 200 Riels exchange.

My first day at school was not that bad. I was seated in the first row. I didn’t know who sat next to me, yet I was interested in a boy sitting in the back row. He varnished his nails red. Maybe that was what really got my attention. I noticed the teacher really liked him. Soon, I realized he was an outstanding student in the class. I did not have any word with him nor with other pupils.