A Day at the Palace

When I first started working at SCC, I was working with Josh from Australia. Josh came up with the idea to one day, take our students on a field trip to the Royal Palace and Silver Pagoda, with a romp in the park after lunch. He ended up leaving before we could actually go on the excursion, but I was able to make sure it happened and go along.

At the Royal Palace, other tourists were taking pictures of the students everywhere we looked. I felt this sense of pride though, that when I took pictures of these kids, I wasn’t just taking pictures of so random oh-so-cute Cambodian students I saw the day I went to the Royal Palace. I was taking pictures of children I know. I know who is dyslexic, who can’t tell the difference between T and I, who likes to stay in at recess and read. I know these children as individuals, as kids with personalities, not as curios to be documented. And, not only do I know them, they know me. I am not some weird tourist snapping pictures of random children. When I take photos, I am capturing the antics of kids I know, who I see and play with five days a week. When I take photos, I am documenting a friendship.

When we took them to the playground after lunch, they were so carefree and happy – just truly, absolutely happy – I thought my heart was going to burst with each hug and kiss and high five I received.

All in all, the day was such a wonderful success. The kids loved it, I loved it, the Khmer teachers loved it, the monks loved it. It was one of the best days I’ve had in Cambodia.

Building Walls and Scrubbing Classrooms

Once a month, Projects Abroad organizes a “Dirty Weekend”: a Saturday when any volunteer who is free takes the day and helps one of the organizations we work with to complete a project they have been working on. This weekend we were at VCAO, an orphanage and school in the dump outside of Phnom Penh, building a wall around the school yard and cleaning the classrooms.

I had a great time: I am a pro with cement an cement blocks (or bricks) after Honduras and Nicaragua, so I felt right at home. My friend Georgie and I were working together at one point, and we were pretty proud of ourselves when we had four perfect rows, one after the other. (A prefect row is a row where you don’t have to break any bricks to complete the row. It is a big deal when building walls).

I like the Dirty Weekend idea because it gives me a chance to see what conditions other volunteers are working in, and what conditions their students are living in. VCAO, like I said, is at the dump. And I don’t mean near the dump, or close to the dump, I mean right in the middle of the dump. There are roads through piles of trash, and the students at VCAO work in those piles, picking up trash that their families can then sell for a few riel (Cambodian currency). It is the same situation Amigos for Christ is trying to fix in Nicaragua with Villa Catalina, and it is just as sad and awful here as it is halfway across the world.

Then, out of all the trash and dirt, comes games and playfulness, and children being children:

Cambodia #6: In Which I am Protected from Large Monkeys by Small Children

On Saturday, I went with a friend on a bike trek across the countryside to Udong, the old capital of Cambodia. It was incredible: not just because I biked more than 46 km, or because I finally got out of the city, but because we were literally biking through rice fields, along cow paths, through front yards. I felt like I was able to see a little of what life is really like for most Cambodians, not just those who live in Phnom Penh.

Udong is quite a small town now: there are just a few places to eat, and some vendors on the side of the road at the base of a long ridge. On the ridge, there are several stupas and incredible views of the Cambodia countryside.

Vihear Preah Ath Roes in the first building you come to once you climb the 166-step staircase to the top of the ridge. The original building was erected and dedicated in 1911 by King Sisowath. The Khmer Rouge bombed the building in 1977, destroying the huge Buddha inside the building and leaving just a few sections of wall intact. Big Buddha, as it is called, has been reconstructed and the building is being slowly rebuilt, but it is still eerie: there are still bullet holes in the walls, it is still possible to see which walls were bombed.

The rest of the stupas are beautiful and intricate, and the views breathtaking, but the best part of the tour is the way tour guides work. As we started toward the hill, a bunch of kids came running up and started telling us facts about the place. Between Steph and I, we had five tour guides. And these kids are not just tour guides. They also work as your insurance against the monkeys that hang out on the ridge. On the way down the hill, the steps go through so denser forest, and within the forest lurks some large monkeys. The monkeys can be vicious, biting tourists and stealing cameras, or anything shiny, from right out of their hands. The kids were constantly looking out for them in the trees as we descended, and if one even started to look like it was heading our way, the kids would chuck rocks are hard as they could at the monkeys to get them to go away.

It is a little bit funny how diligently they keep an eye out for the monkeys, until you realize why they are so on top of it. For the kids, there is a war being waged against the furry creatures. These children work all day for the few dollars they get as guides to help put food on the table at home, and to help pay for school and English lessons. If the monkeys start hurting visitors to Udong, people will stop coming, and the kids will lose their livelihood. So, they keep a constant eye out, and they fight the monkeys off with rocks the size of my fist. It is a sad, but common, story here.

The Tension of Opposites

In the book I’ve just finished, Tuesdays with Morrie, Morrie talks about the tension of opposites, and how life is run by those tensions. The tension of opposites is exactly what it sounds like: it is the tension we feel between two opposite things. Morrie talks about it in relation to knowing he is going to die, but want to live life to the fullest. Here in Cambodia, I feel that tension everyday: in the classroom, at the apartments, around the city, and especially within myself.

In the classroom, there are moments when I am so happy to be teaching these children, because sometimes, they really understand what I am teaching. I see the instant when their face goes from the confused, what-the-heck-is-she-talking-about face, to the oh-oh-oh-I-get-it face. When I witness that moment, I feel as though what I am doing is not a waste of time, that I might actually be making a difference. Then there are the moments when I think about all the English teachers that have come before me and all the English teachers that will come after me in these student’s lives, and I wonder what I am actually accomplishing. I am here for three months teaching these children. Learning a language takes YEARS, not months, and I think I can really teach these students something they will remember? When I feel this despair, I have to remember that moment of understanding, and remember that even if I can’t teach them everything, I can at least solidify the knowledge they have, and maybe, if there is time, work on something new. I can come up with ideas, and leave them for the next volunteer, so that things aren’t repeated too often, so that we can build on the student’s English foundation. Even if I am only here for a short while, I can do something.

Back at the apartments, I hear the same complaints from the volunteers: They don’t know if what we are doing is worth the time we are giving. Is what we do going to be remembered in the future? Is what we are doing actually appreciated? We want to be giving our time, we want to be helping, but sometimes it feels as though it is pointless, that we should be doing something else, were we can instantly see that we are making a difference. When these questions come up, we all just have to remember that teaching and care is what we came here for, and that whatever we can do is more than what the students and children would get if we were not here.

Within the city, within the country, I see this tension everywhere. I see it in the fact that many things are becoming westernized, that the people all want the lightest skin possible, but there is a fierce national pride. Cambodians love their country and their culture to bits, but at the same time what everything they can from the Western world. It is a hard thing to keep even: retaining the good parts of old ways, but still moving forward into the next phase of life.

And finally, me. I am made from this tension right now, that is it. I have never wanted to be with my family and friends more than at this moment, nor have I ever wanted to stay and experience and help more than right now. It is hard, to have such strong pulls in both directions, and the key is to keep the pulls even. If it isn’t even, then I get homesick, I feel miserable, and I seriously want to find the next flight home and be on it. Each day it is easier to keep the forces even. Each success in the classroom makes it easier, each time a new volunteer arrives it makes it easier, each time I sit down to dinner and hear about the success and troubles of the other volunteers it makes it easier to stay.

It is hard being here, making new friends daily, not know the language, not understanding the customs all the time, not always being able to communicate, not always knowing what I am eating, but each day gets better, each day gets easier, and one of these days, I won’t have to worry about feeling homesick and ready to quit. One day, I won’t want to leave this place.

Water Festival

This past weekend in Phnom Penh has been crazy. Literally a million people come in from the provinces to participate in the Water Festival, a three day festival in November with boat races, fireworks, vendors, Ferris wheels, and light parades on the river at night. On the streets of Riverside (one of the districts of Phnom Penh, can you guess where?) there are vendors everywhere, even more than normal. They sell bright pink and orange and yellow pinwheels, flashy plastic light up toys, and little festively painted bamboo animals on sticks. There is an abundance of people selling small baggies of sweet sugar cane juice, pushing their carts filled with long pale sticks of sugar cane and the roller that flattens the cane and squeezes out the liquid.

The crush of people is amazing. There are more people in Riverside than anywhere I have ever been before. It is a zoo. There are children running around, people yelling, motos beeping trying to get through the crowd. There is so much activity everywhere you turn; there is no respite from it all. Even when you find a restaurant with a balcony above the crowds, it is still loud with music and voices, and your nose is accosted with the most delicious smells one moment and the most vile scent the next. Then, on top of everything, it is hot hot hot. The sun beats down during the day, and at night, there is plenty of residual heat with the crush of people keeping the evening air from cooling off. It is crazy and exhausting, but exhilarating and energizing all at the same time.

The boats they use in the races are long and narrow, low to the water. On Saturday when we went to see the beginning of the races, one of the boats had actually sunk, and the team was trying to get the boat back to the shore to get it emptied and floating again. The boats have teams of between 60 and 70 rowers, all dressed in fluorescent tee shirts with a matching or contrasting baseball cap. The men either sit or kneel along the sides of the boat and paddle together, much like crew. And like watching any crew team, or any spots team: when they are not competing, they are on the sidelines, fooling around, playing music, and dancing. One guy was using a big plastic bucket for a drum, and another team member was rapping through a megaphone while the rest of the team was dancing and having a grand old time. One of my friends from Project Abroad went in and joined them, and they thought it was crazy cool – it was hysterical and really kind of fun to connect in such a way with the locals.

In the evening, starting at about 6pm, there are fireworks and a boat parade on the river. The fireworks are good: they last almost a half an hour and all my favorite types made an appearance in the show. The boat parade consists of boats from different branches of the government, each with a different picture or design fashioned completely out of lights. Some of the boats have music, some have words, and some just have a picture. The boats continue to move up and down the river all night, and it is a calming, beautiful, majestic background that contrasts nicely with the more rambunctious celebrations on the banks of the river.

The atmosphere of the festival is just one big party, and just like any party, it is a good time while it lasts, and then after, it is nice to go back to the normalcy and routine of everyday life.