Steve's Pursuit of Happiness

     Before we left home, Steve said he really wanted to simplify his life. He feels reasonably successful, considering he’s been able to give up two things that he doesn’t miss at all: his car, and his pants.

     To be a fair, he does wear pants when he leaves the house. But at home, he pretty much lives in his underwear. Which is not to say that is what Khmer men do at home (I wouldn’t know), but they certainly wear their underwear, or even less, in many more public places than we do at home. 

     When men are fishing on the river or lake, whether in a boat or wading in and out from shore, they often wear only dark-colored bikini underwear, and you see them along the side of the road in such attire with some regularity. Hanging around in front of their homes, or even walking down the road in their village, men are often seen wearing their krama (a cotton scarf) around their waist and nothing more. From our back balcony, we can watch the guy next door bathing at his outdoor water pump, wearing only his krama and coming damn close to removing or losing it completely as he scrubs and rinses.

     So when Steve feels like walking out on that back balcony of ours, he doesn't feel any obligation to wear pants. Just his nice boxer briefs will do fine, out there and everywhere else in the house.

     And when he’s wandering the house in his boxer briefs, he’s very likely to be carrying a racket. Not a tennis racket, as you might have imagined (assuming you wanted to imagine such a scene at all.) He carries a mosquito racket.  It’s shaped like a tennis racket, but it has a lightweight plastic handle and strings of fine metal wire, and a plug at the base of the handle. When fully charged and turned on, you can wave it in the air and it will kill any bug in its path, even ones you didn’t know were there. They sizzle momentarily on the wires, making a dangerous bug-zapping sound. 

     Steve hates mosquitoes, but he loves his mosquito racket. He’s asked me a few times if I’ve tried it yet, and I’ve had to point out that I haven’t had much opportunity, since he uses it all day long. In fact, he often naps with it clutched to his chest. I’ll wage war with the ants, and he can have the Racket of Death all to himself.

     But it’s easy to imagine how much Steve must miss the swing of a real tennis racket punctuated by the satisfying thwap of its connection with a tennis ball. For those who don’t know, Steve was an avid tennis player at home, happiest when he could play four or five times a week. As of today, he hasn’t played for a month. He thought a lot about this possibility before we left home, and wrestled with decisions about whether to bring a racket or two. He sent Jaz off on missions around Siem Reap to see if tennis balls would be available. In the end, ever the optimist, he brought two rackets and a handful of tennis balls.

     In our first few weeks here, his pursuit of tennis has consisted primarily of the pursuit of other tennis players. He asks everyone he meets if they know anyone who plays. Among the ex-pats, he got a few phone numbers, and has begun to make contacts. Since no one has been able to provide him with any hard facts about where to find a tennis court in SIem Reap, he started that search this weekend.

     He had done his homework. He found what looked like a reasonable website with a Siem Reap-oriented message board and posted a question about tennis. No responses. He Googled “Siem Reap+hotel+tennis” and got a few results. The websites of the hotels themselves didn’t give enough information, but he wrote down phone numbers and began to make calls.

     This was what I heard on our end of the first call: “Hello?...Hello. Is this the Something-or-other hotel?.....OK, I’m calling to ask if you have tennis courts……Tennis courts…….(more emphatically) Tennis. Courts……… Do you have tennis courts?......No, I don't want internet, I want tennis court…..No, not internet. Tennis. You know, tennis? Tennis courts?........No, tennis courts. I don't want internet ...........No, not wifi. Tennis courts?…….OK, thanks……”  Steve looked at me, shrugged, and dialed the next number. He was undaunted. I was rolling on the floor.

     He ended up going out on his bike to visit the hotels in person. Some of them actually had tennis courts! (And internet.)