arranged with a driver for longer trips. There’s no panic or panic buying here and the city isn’t locked down but we’ve been living with this threat since January ... using sanitizer and wearing masks ... except Westerners ... you really wonder about those guys. Last night at about 9pm our staff goes into panic overdrive when somebody reports a Chinese in the building after hours. Immediately Telegram lights up with strategy: find the guy, test him; lock down the building for the morning (Monday) and disinfect classrooms, bathrooms, stairways; lock down for the day and disinfect; “cancel classes” … “but what about final exams?” … “they were supposed to be finished” … “I have to do a make-up day” … And on it goes for about 40 minutes. Then some video turns up … and we know the guy – a Chinese PhD student who’s been here for over a year. Fell asleep in one of the classrooms. Telegram heaves a sigh of relief and everyone signs off. Whew! Crazy. Classes are finished for this semester. Looks like (not confirmed yet) that my IELTS classes will pause/be postponed for a while or maybe get cancelled ... will find out tomorrow or later in the week … or …? Planning is fluid now. The new term will begin as normal, but does that mean in class or online? Nothing’s clear. I worked yesterday but not today. Don’t know about tomorrow but am adopting a bunker mentality as I assume work will dry up – K-12 schools are closed and there was a directive yesterday about post-secondary – and soon it’ll be just a daily trip to the market and home again. 6Z is strangely silent … can’t hear much ambient traffic noise, horning, or whistling … the world seems quiet. David Etheridge is a Canadian teacher currently living in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. He has taught in colleges and universities in Canada, Hungary, the Republic of Georgia, the United Arab Emirates, the People’s Republic of China, and Qatar.
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