Love Notes

Over the summer, we had some volunteers from the US offer extra training to our staff. In order to make that possible, I had to hire an additional translator. We do this fairly often, and so I'm used to hiring temporary workers and when things are finished, we say goodbye with the promise to hopefully work together again in the future.

This year, we hired a male translator who was really helpful, but with whom I had pretty limited interaction. He was out in the provinces quite a bit, so I basically contacted him to give him details on when to meet us for travel, and where to pick up his paycheck. In no way would I have considered this person a friend, or even an acquaintance. So, imagine my surprise when he came in to pick up his final pay and sat for 30 minutes, asking me all kinds of questions. Catching on to the fact that he seemed to think we could mean more to each other than employer/employee, I did my best to make sure he knew that I had work to finish, and offered to let him know when I would be going back to the US (although I was careful to note that it would not be "for a long time").

Since then, he has sent me an SMS at 11:30 at night (way too late for the average Cambodian), phoned "just to say hello" and sent a few other messages my way, most of which I have ignored. I thought I spotted him at a restaurant last week, but didn't say hello, figuring the easiest way to avoid him was, well, to avoid him. Then I had to dodge 3 phone calls and read a humorous SMS regarding why I didn't say hello. I didn't think it was a good idea to text back "well, dude, i'm avoiding you."

In the midst of a busy week, my phone beeped one morning. Picking up the SMS, I found the following:

"Good morning. How a[re] u? Last night i dream about u and than i say i love u. When i get up i didnt see u."

It's certainly not a marriage proposal, but I think it might be the creepiest SMS I have received to date. I'm now curious as to whether Cambodia has anything resembling a restraining order.