It's said that one of the most important thing that happens in travel is moving beyond one's comfort zone. Strike today up as a big success for me, I suppose. Today was a divide and conquer day. Leanne had to go to a clinic this morning to get the huge nasty looking bug bite on here foot looked at. They gave her antibiotics, anti-inflamatories, and some other good stuff. Just like home, they tried to give her the wrong perscription when they picked up her meds. Besides that, the clinic was great and her buggy bite should clear up nicely. Marcy, Kaley, Leanne, and Deb spent the day shopping and doing fun things. The girls got some jewely so that was a hit. Mike went to visit Toel Sleng (the high school that was turned into a torture prison during the Khmer Rouge regime.) Julie and Hilary returned to Svey Rieng to visit with Hilary's birthfamily again. From what I've heard, the shoppers had a great day, but Julie and Hilary had a tough one. The trip back and forth to Svey Rieng is exhausting including the torturous beggars faced at the ferry station. While it is clear that Hilary's three sisters care deeply for her, the visits have been complicated by messy family systems (don't we have that in every country?) and the cultural expectations and levels of poverty within which the family lives. Tomorrow, both girls will have one additional visit with their birthfamilies. Hilary's sisters are coming to Phnom Penh for a final visit. Leanne and her family are heading out to her birthfamily's home in Kompong Speu for a party. Please keep both of the girls and their families in your prayers as they face all of this.
As for me, I spent the day adventuring on my own. My friend and driver, Yoen, spends most of his time working as the in country liason for a non-profit funded by an adoptive family who has built a school out in Kompong Speu province in honor of their son. Yoen is very proud of his work at the school and when we were here in 2005 he wanted to take us out there but we just ran out of time. I promised him that if we ever came back I would go visit, and he remembered. So this morning at 6 am Yoen picked me up for our road trip.
Yoen has a seeminlgy unquenchable thirst for mastering the english language and much of our 4 hour drive was spent playing the "how do you say ....." game. One of his questions was, "What is the opposite of predator?" Anyone want to take a stab at that one? We traveled through THICK traffic getting out of Phnom Penh since we were leaving the city as thousands of garment factory workers were heading to work in the massive factories where they make our GAP and Old Navy clothes for pennies here in Cambodia. Once out of the city we drove for quite a long way on bumpy dirt and gravel roads. I wasn't sure exactly where we were going, but Yoen told me that the school is at the foot of the Cardoman Mountain Range and as we drove I began to see the mountains in the distance.
We finally arrived at the school, which is on summer break for the students. Several of the men who work there were present and they were very interested in this "statuesque" American woman that Yoen had brought with him. I am a spectacle most places that I go out in the countryside here, but this was a very remote area so it was all the more so. This remote area was a heavily wooded area but over the past maybe 5 - 10 years the trees have been cut down at dangerously fast rates. The people living there can't seem to think through to the future to understand what it will mean to their future when the forest is totally gone. We passed yard after yard with wood stacked in the front, and trucks and vans loaded to the top with bags of charcoal made from the illegally cut down timber.
As a means of providing income for local villagers, and addressing the devastation in the forests in that area, this school has started a program that makes cooking briquettes out of scrap paper. It is quite a process where the paper is liquified, the pulp is put into moldes, and then the briquettes dry in the sun. The briquettes are sold to families and restaurants which would normally use charcoal or wood to cook their food. It is quite a little operation and Yoen was very proud to show it to me. As he was giving me a tour of the property he told me that most of the land in this area is land that was given to former Khmer Rouge soldiers by the government. After the war these people had nowhere to go, so they were given this farmland. The price for the land now is rising dramatically since the Chinese (or Korean, I cant't remember) is building a big hydroelectric plant in the area which will supply plentiful electricy throughout the region.
Yoen also told me that in the mountains ahead of us the people can't keep cattle, because the tigers attack them. Hmmm. One of the men who worked with the briquette program also shared with Yoen that his son presently has malaria, but don't worry because he is feeling better. Hmmm again. Glad I'm taking my malarone.
After we had been there just a few moments I was seated at a table and offered tea. Yoen assured me that I could drink it because it was made out of rain water from a pot, not river water. Hmmm. I drank.
Next up was a visit a little farther out of town to see a piece of land. Hilary's one sister was thinking of moving to a place where she could own land and Yoen had told us that land was cheaper out near this school. He had arranged for me to look at the piece of property while we were out there. The only problem was that the car we had travelled in couldn't go any further on the road. Yoen looked at me and said, "We will ride motorbikes." ARE YOU KIDDING ME? My hubby Jim bought a motorcycle a couple of months ago. I've never been on it and I probably never will. When he rides, he is careful and always wears a helmet, boots, heavy pants, and a jacket. So here I was in Cambodia, about to climb on a motorcycle behind a former Khmer Rouge soldier, and I was wearing no helmet, no jacket, capri length pants, and rubber flip flops on my feet. Saying "no" crossed my mind for a moment, but then I thought, "Oh what the heck." After the first few bumps and getting over the sense I was going to go flying off, I actually kind of enjoyed the ride. But I don't think I'm going to make a habit of it.
The land turned out to be a bust, since it was located next to the home of illegal loggers and was pretty barren. I wouldn't want to see anyone live there. So politely as I could I told the people no thanks, and then Yoen suggested that we ride into the village and take the workers from the school with us to lunch at the restaurant. Sounds good to me.
Um - hello? This is Cambodia. Leave your expectations at the door. This was not what I would call a restaurant. We pulled off the road in front of this little open air place with some pots on a cart out front. Yoen lifted a lid on a pot with whole fish in some kind of broth and told me I could eat that because it was very hot so it was safe. To me, this was worse than the motorcycle ride. I pulled him aside and said, "Yoen, I can't do this. I cannot get sick and ruin this trip. I am sorry." "But you will offend," he said. So we finally agreed that I would have white rice and a fried egg. I chopped the egg up into my rice, and then very carefully took a few bites of rice in areas where the egg wasn't. So far it's been about 10 hours and I'm still good. I'm hoping for the best but I'm going to take a dose of antibiotic tonight! The men seemed to thoroughly enjoy their fish head soup and pork with bamboo. Yummy.
Back at the school Yoen and the men had payroll to attend to before we could leave. They carefully negotiated the months pay for the briquette workers and counted out the payments in cash - Cambodian cash. 4000 riel = 1 dollar. Yep, it took a while. On average, the workers there make $33 a month. This is considered to be a good job for the local village women.
Our adventure finally ended and Yoen and I headed back to the city (in a car!) We played the english word game some more . While we were driving alont he asked me if I wanted to stop to see "New Angkor Wat." What's that? He explained that a Cambodian man living in California had raised money to build scale replicas of Angkor Wat and Bayon temples about an hour outside of Phnom Penh. Thinking we were going to see mini villages, I said sure. I was blown away by the size of this face historic temples that we drove up to. It was insane. I asked Yoen what he thought of this much money being spent to build such a thing. We agreed that in a nation like Cambodia there were probably far better uses for the huge sums of money that must be being spent to build these temples. While we were there (and there were very few people there looking around) I also saw a budhist monk in full orange robes wearing a blue tooth phone in his ear. Hmmmm again.
Tonight, we went to a really yummy restaurant named the Boddhi Tree which sits directly across the street from Toel Sleng museum of torture. Sad location, good cheap food. After dinner we all went to Sovanna Phum which is a theater where local kids are taught to do the native dances. Unbeknownst to us, tonight was a special night and the regular dances were not done and instead a group of Khmer drummers and male "monkey dancer" put on the show. It was more than a little weird, but entertaining in a bizarre kind of way. It's Cambodia.... we should have left our expecations at the door.
Last stop for the evening was ice cream, where only about half of us got what we ordered, but it's OK because we're learning to let go of those expectations, right? The girls (who have become so close that they squabble like sisters) are on the internet, Deb is floating in the pool, and I will soon join her.
Tomorrow will be another big day, with the final birthfamily visits. As for me, Yoen's wife is coming first thing in the morning to take me shopping for the refrigerator that we are donating to the Nutrition Center. She doesn't speak a word of english. I asked Yoen today if we would be able to communicate with each other enough to get the job done. He smiled and said, "In Cambodia we have an expression that says that you will be like an ox and a cow walking together." Huh? Which one am I? Should be fun.
In all seriousness, we are learning in these final days here that we have to let go of the expecations if being here is to be a positive experience. Don't expect to get the food you ordered. Don't expect to go where you thought you would go. Don't expect to be able to change the cycles of poverty and corruption and pain, even if your heart is in the right place. It's not an easy place to be. But a piece of my heart still belongs to this broken land.
Good night all.
Big hugs -
Lisa
Photos: 1. Me and my Khmer Rouge friend on a motorcycle. 2. Lunch at the "restaurant." 3. Yoen outside of the New Angkor Wat.
0 comments:
Post a Comment