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H5N1
Thursday, July 31, 2008, 14:18 -
A funny story from Phnom Penh that I forgot about until today...I was sitting downstairs in the guesthouse, enjoying a morning omelette with onions, when a girl asked to sit at my table. Her name was Jenny, she was American and she was in a similar situation to me: she lived in Indonesia and was on holiday in Cambodia for a while. We got chatting and it turned out she worked for the U.N. and was an avian flu researcher in Indonesia. She talked about how there is still a very real threat of a pandemic and how poorly the reporting system worked in Indonesia. The guesthouse dining area was pretty small, which is why Jenny needed to sit at my table in the first place, and I could see most of the people in the place. I was facing in and Jenny was facing out. She was a good talker and I could see people were half-listening to our conversation. Anyway, after explaining all about how bad the situation is, how easily H5N1 spreads, how there could be an outbreak at any given moment and that they wear full chemical warfare suits to investigate cases, she sneezes really loudly, sniffs and says 'I think I'm coming down with the flu'. You could have heard a pin drop in the place, everyone's head snapped round to look at us and one guy dropped his fork. Jenny never saw any of this because she was facing the wrong way and at that moment her taxi arrived. She said goodbye and left. I never saw her again, but I'll always remember her just for the looks on the other diner's faces... It was a thing of beauty.
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