Missing Polly Jean

Until now, everything here has been so new to me; a new city, a new job, new people - a totally new life. I hardly haven´t had the time to think about what I´ve left behind at all. Until yesterday morning, when I enjoyed my saturday morning breakfast at a french café near my hotel. Suddenly entered a black laborador, taken for a walk by his master to the bakery to buy some fresh baguettes for breakfast. As I saw the dog and its master together, I was overwhelmed by the feeling of missing my precious princess enormously. And my eyes was filled with tears. The night after, I dreamt that I was at home in Stockholm, cuddling with Polly Jean. It was a nice and sunny afternoon in Stockholm, and we spent it together playing in the garden, and after that we took a nap together on the sofa. Just as any regular saturday. The dream was so real; I felt the warmth from her body and she licked my face - but thank God I didn´t smell her breath. :-) The dream was so real that I didn´t understand where I was when I woke up. It took me a minute or so to understand that I was at a hotel in Phnom Penh, and not at home with my dog. And of course, at that moment I missed her a lot.

Not many people understands how much the pets; boths the cats and the dog means to me and Janne. But I don´t care. I just feel sorry for them, not having experienced the friendship and love that the pets has brought into our lives. Knowing that they have a great life although I have moved 10.000 kilometres away, getting the best care possible by the best master in the whole world, Janne, makes this adventure possible for me. Without his love and care for them, I strongly doubt that I would´ve accepted the job here in Phnom Penh, and definitely not with a peaceful mind. So for this; helping my dream of moving to Asia come true, I´m more grateful to him than I can put in words.

Despite what I now have told you, being away from Janne and the pets is actually a lot easier than I had expected. The new techniques of communication is of course to thank for this. Today, me and Janne spoke with the help of the iChat programme in our laptops, which makes it possible for us to both speak and see eachother. We spoke for nearly an hour, until Polly Jean, who was sleeping with her head on Jannes lap and snored so I could hear it all the way to Cambodia, decided that it was time for a walk. It feels so good to be able to speak and to see eachother; what an enormous change since I did my first field study in Thailand 12 years ago, when we communicated by letters and telegrammes... Now I can listen to Polly Jean the bull terrier snoring and Smilla the cat meowing all the to Cambodia. That is definitely a lovely cure for a longing heart on the other side of the world!


Me and Polly Jean