Peter Pan in Church and other Cutisms

Here are some more good vingettes from the kiddos...

Today we took the kids to the embassy playroom in the afternoon. Ben and Ellie crawled up into a plastic playhouse and Ellie told us she was in church. She then told us where the priest stood (no doubt the influence of the Catholic Church we had been attending here...no mainstream Protestant churches to be found!) and that they were listening to the sermon. Then we had a bit of a divergence as she said that John and Michael were sitting next to her and Ben. When I remarked that those just happened to be the names of two of the kids in Peter Pan, she said, "Yes, and I'm Wendy and Ben is Peter Pan!"

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(With apologies to Andy...) A few weeks ago we were talking about some gift that my sister Jessica had given to Ben and Ellie and we used the opportunity to review the family tree a little. I said, "And who is married to Aunt Jess?" Ben didn't hesitate before saying "Christmas!"

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Beth and Dick gave Ben a "talking" car and removable driver for his birthday that says things like "vroom vroom". It also says "Full Speed Ahead" which has been misheard by the kids into cute nicknames for the toy. Ben calls the driver Eeda (as in "Full Sp...Eeed a ...head") and Ellie calls him "Old Beater Head"!

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A few months ago, as Ben was still mastering greetings, he got confused by the different things we'd say to our cleaner, Somany, when she left for the day. Usually we'd say "See you tomorrow!" but on Saturdays we'd say "See you on Monday!". Ben decided to cover both bases by making his standard farewell "See you tomonday!"

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Another oldie but goodie...last year as Ellie was learning all the lingo about our lives here in Cambodia, she used to always get confused by our local English language paper, The Cambodia Daily, and the hotel where we go swimming, The Cambodiana. When we mentioned going swimming, she would say, "Are we going to the Hotel Cambodi-daily-ana?"

Another Item in the Annals of Foreign Policy Gone Wrong

Well, our local English language daily is continuing to ask questions about our drug report. A story they plan to run early next week will cast doubt on the drug estimates we used, based on an estimate from the recognized leading drug expert in the country, and will contrast it with the government's official line--a number 1/25 of the estimate we used, and based on assumptions like 1. all drug users in the country have been reported to the police 2. each drug user takes one amphetamine pill per day and 3. no drugs transit through Cambodia on their way to other countries.

Fortunately, once again a foreign government (well, in this case, Ambassador) has been reported by the press in an embarrassing situation, reminding me that some diplomats are answering far tougher questions than I am!

Israel recalls ambassador found naked

Diplomat, wearing sex bondage gear, found outside El Salvador residence

The Associated Press

Updated: 1:31 p.m. ET March 12, 2007

JERUSALEM - Israel has recalled its ambassador to El Salvador after he was found naked, bound and drunk, according to Israeli media reports confirmed Monday by a government spokeswoman.

The longtime diplomat, Tsuriel Raphael, has been removed from his post and the Foreign Ministry has begun searching for a replacement, said ministry spokeswoman Zehavit Ben-Hillel.

Two weeks ago, El Salvador police found Raphael in the yard of his residence, tied up, gagged with a ball and drunk, Israeli media reported. He was wearing sex bondage equipment, the media said. After he was untied, Raphael told police he was the ambassador of Israel, the reports said.

Ben-Hillel said the reports were accurate and that Raphael has been recalled, although he did not break any laws.

“We’re talking about behavior that is unbecoming of a diplomat,” she said.

The ambassador did not file a police complaint in the incident, she said.

Raphael had served for six months as the ambassador in El Salvador and for several years at different missions around the world, she said.

The embarrassing affair was one of several involving Israeli diplomats in recent years. In 2000, Israel’s ambassador to France died of cardiac arrest in a Paris hotel under circumstances the Foreign Ministry refused to publicize. Media reports said he was with a woman who was not his wife at the time.

Last year, Israel replaced its ambassador to Australia, Naftali Tamir, after he said Israel and Australia are “like sisters” because both are located in Asia and their peoples don’t have the Asian characteristics of “yellow skin and slanted eyes.”

In 2005, Israel canceled the appointment of a diplomat to Australia after it was discovered that he published pictures of nude Brazilian women on the Internet while on a mission in Brazil.

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

The Good, Bad, and the Downright Hilarious

Well, it's not even 3 pm and it's already been an up and down weekend.

This morning, after starting up a bit roughly with Ellie waking Ben at 5:30 am, I called my friend Andrea in Chile and had a lovely time chatting. We haven't spoken for several months, so it was really nice to get caught up with her.

Then I opened up the Cambodia Daily only to read the headline "Some Question Numbers in US Drug Report". Hey, that was my drug report that we just published! Who was questioning those numbers? Either due to shoddy journalism or the inaccurate memories of people I interviewed three months ago (Washington's deadline for submitting the Cambodia part of the report, which they only released publicly this week), the report seemed to imply that I used old numbers from the UN Office of Drugs and Crime and described them as new numbers from the World Health Organization. In fact, I was quoting a WHO estimate based on trends since the UNODC report was done. I was downright pissed, feeling like I got egg on my face and just waiting for some senior embassy person to call me up and yell at me. Fortunately, the embassy consensus so far seems to be that it is shoddy journalism to blame, not me.

What really made me feel better, though was to read this headline from the New York Times. Yes, today some Swiss diplomats are answering far tougher questions from the press than I had to. I don't envy them.