Kids at play

It is so fun to watch Cambodian children play, especially when they can put their adult responsibilities aside and have a good time. They tease and laugh and work through arguments the way I have seen so many other children do. They play until they roll on the ground laughing or sit there panting trying to catch their breath. They don’t have very many “toys” here so the children have learned to be resourceful. They play a lot of games that don’t involve any special equipment or training. The games that need equipment usually require a shoe, a rock, or a single ball. Today, I played with some kids by a lake in Siem Riep as they jumped a rope made out of vines tied together into a long string. Simplicity and creativity are the keys to the games that these kids have mastered, and they will always welcome you into the fun…if you can keep up with them!

Non-Tabitha families

One thing we did as we went out visiting Tabitha villages was to talk to a few people living in communities that had had no contact with Tabitha and in some cases no contact with any NGOs at all. The families we met were very poor, and it was obvious as we talked to them that some major differences existed between them and the people participating in the Tabitha programs. It is hard to tell at this point if those differences emerged because of their participation in the program or if the differences influenced their decision and opportunities to participate in them. Nevertheless, some striking and heart-breaking things became clear to us.

The pain and constant struggle that represents their life is obvious when you talk to them, and the exhaustion of living just exudes from them. They have no plans for the future. They can't really see beyond food today and finding work tomorrow. It was so sad to ask them questions about what they hope for in the future or what they worry about for their children, and observe their inability to see beyond food and shelter. Those are the obvious concerns and they loom so large that anything else is eclipsed. No wonder they have such difficulty making changes...they don't have time or energy to even think about change let alone start moving toward it. The people participating with Tabitha in the saving program seem to have begun to see a little sliver of hope shining through the door of possibility that is just barely starting to open for them, with the help of people who genuinely care. What a gift these representatives are giving people. They are helping them open their eyes to what could be. I take that ability for granted. We are so fortunate; we get to think about goals and possibilities and relationships. We can even think about thinking! I can't imagine struggling the ways these people do. I feel so helpless and unfairly privileged, and I realized that in many ways I have done nothing to merit those privileges. Talking to these families has really helped me see life from a different perspective.

On the go

There are many possibilities for transportation here in the Kingdom of Cambodia. Some people walk, others prefer to ride bicycles if they are fortunate enough to have access to them, while motos are the most common personal and family vehicles here. Public transportation has many faces. In the city, cyclos, a bicycle pushing or pulling a cart for someone or something to be transported in, seem to hold the bottom tier. Moto dopes, people who take people on the back of their moto like a personal taxi, belong to the next rung to the public transport ladder. Then there are kombeys. Kombeys (or tuk-tuks as adopted from Thailand) consist of a motorbike attached to a type of carriage with seats for passengers. There are many more trucks and cars on the streets now than there were the first time I came to Cambodia. Trucks are mostly used for work vehicles. Some families have cars, but that is much less common here than in the U.S. You can usually find cars for rent as a mode of transportation from city to city. This is a faster way to go, but considered less safe than the bus system which is only set up as an inter-city rather than an intra-city service. Cyclos, motos, and buses are the cheapest options for transportation if you do not own your own vehicle…but my favorite is still the average bike. You have the freedom to fly and not go too fast to miss the novelty and beauty of things around you.

The Life of Kay

The most heart-breaking experiences here seem to happen when you are interacting with the kids. Maybe their innocence makes the hopelessness and pain more obvious, or maybe we just see kids outside the callous stereotypes that we seem to develop in relating to one another as adults. Whatever the reason, it happened to me again today at the beach.
Jes and I took a trip to a beach town about 4 hours southwest of Phnom Penh. We were just hanging out on the beach and attempting to talk our way out of buying all the stuff people were trying to sell us. One little girl came selling some snacks. She carried a flat basket filled with the chips and dried fruit she needed to sell on her head. She is eight years old and her name is Kay. She looked so tiny next to the other children and adolescents selling things on the beach, but she was tough…pushing her goods, making sure she had all her money and that she didn’t take any bills that were too dirty or torn back to her mother. She looked stressed and a bit overwhelmed when things didn't go as planned in carrying out her responsibility in helping to provide for her family.
Kay sold us some treats and stayed around for a while. I talked to her a little bit in Cambodian, and Jes kept talking to her in English. She loved practicing her English and eventually came up next to Jes and drew the lines of a tic-tac-toe square in the sand. She and Jes began playing tic-tac-toe all over the beach. Then they drew pictures in the sand. Eventually, they began playing a game similar to hopscotch. It was amazing to watch the change that took place. As she began playing, she left her basket of goods next to me on the sand (I’m glad she trusted us so much especially in area with so much theft), and seemed to become a different person. She went from a street-hardened, frustrated, overly burdened girl taking on adult responsibilities to an endearing little 8 year-old child with a tender heart and a smile to match it! She laughed, explored, left her basket behind, and became creative. It was like magic. And there I was sitting on a mat on the beach in a small little town in Cambodia crying because I have just seen a miracle.
I sat there and wondered what would become of her obvious talents and artistic sensitivity without opportunities to develop those gifts. Now I wonder how long it will be before she no longer remembers how to put her basket down and go play, before she forgets what it means to trust, and before she becomes a product of survival rather than the spring of creativity that was evident today. I cried tears of sorrow for Kay and the difficult life she has before her. I cried for the countless others like her, wanting to hope for their future but feeling the despair and hopelessness that they are always fighting in their own lives. If I feel the struggle to have hope in the possibilities for their futures from where I stand with experiences, vision, optimism, and resources, how do I expect little Kay to have hope in something she has never seen before…not in her own life or in the lives of her family members and friends?
I am grateful to have witnessed the beauty of a child today, and I am still working to make sense of what I experienced. Maybe for now it is enough to have experienced it. Still I hope that these experiences, both beautiful and painful, change me. However, I know this kind of change is not a passive process, and I am left with more questions everyday. What do experiences like this mean about my life? How do I make sense of the poverty and suffering here? And what will become of little Kay?

Song and dance...soul and body

Cambodians love music and dancing...especially karaoke style! There are hundreds of little karaoke places all over the city. Many people have karaoke machines in their houses, and they often buy karaoke VCDs rather than the usual audio CDs. They don't necessarily have a lot of training in music, but their singing and dancing (in all forms or styles) is very much a part of their culture. You can hear music floating from houses and businesses of all kinds as you ride down the street and it claims a significant role in almost all important and popular events here. I have included a picture of some young adult members doing a little hip-hop at a church activity, and of one of our friends singing at a traditional wedding. The video clip is of a band playing at the night market here in Phnom Penh.

Sugar Cane

Today we visited a Care for Life village called Chiverano. We followed one of the Care for Life workers (Chichonga) around as he visited families in the village to check up on how they were doing on their goals. After we finished visiting the families we stopped by the house of one of the local Care for Life community leaders so that Chichonga could teach her a bit more about her duties as a Care for Life leader in the community. While we were resting the leader's father handed Summer and I two huge sticks and told us they were sugar cane. So, after a few seconds of starring at the sugar cane and making it very evident that we had no idea of what to do with it, the man started peeling it for us. Then he handed me a knife so that I could peel it myself. Then they decided that I was going to kill myself trying to peel the sugar cane (maybe not kill but DEFINITELY injure) and they took the knife away from me - probably a good thing. So then we were left with a huge cane of sugar and the top part peeled... so we figured we'd just suck on it. No one told us that the correct way to eat a sugar cane is to break the cane in segments and cut the segments up into pieces, chew the pieces, and then spit out the fibers. And, of course, they waited until we decided we were done struggling with our canes to model the correct way of eating sugar cane. We didn't look foreign at all!!!! :) We had a great time though ... they got a total kick out of us and we enjoyed the sugar cane and the experience! :)

The Killing Fields

I've been avoiding writing this post a little bit because it is a difficult and painful topic. Last week, Jes and I went out to see a particular site of the Killing Fields. The Killing Fields include several areas where hundreds of thousands of people were tortured and brutally executed in the late 1970's during the reign of Pol Pot, a leader of the Communist Khmer Rouge regime. It is a spot that many tourists visit, although not one of my favorites. You can feel a weight of sorrow and helplessness in the atmosphere there. They have made the area we visited into a monument with information about the Khmer Rouge and what happened to the Cambodian people during Pol Pot's reign of terror.

As you walk in to the area, you are confronted by a tall building with long glass windows encasing thousands of disintered skulls. Some years ago the government dug up the mass graves there in order to provide evidence of the autrocities commited by the Khmer Rouge "killing machine." These skulls are displayed as part of the monument. You can also see the sites where the victims were unceremoniously buried after they were tortured and killed. As I walked around, with some of my dear Cambodian friends, I felt a mixture of strong emotions. I felt angry that such inhumanity could occur and such disbelief that anyone could treat a fellow human being with such cruelty. I felt heavy with sadness and despair as I contemplated the helpless position that so many found themselves in during that time.

It would be nice to say that all this suffering is a thing of past, but unfortunately it still haunts the Cambodian people in so many ways. I met very few of the older generation here who didn't lose family during that era. Many citizens were forced to leave their homes and relocate. Virtually everyone has been affected in some way. Important documents and records were lost. Economic and technological progress was stymied as those who were skilled, educated, or out-spoken were destroyed. I am incredibly grateful for my opportunity know so many of these great people so intimately. I think this relationship makes my knowledge of their history and their suffering that much more painful. Visiting the Killing Fields is one of those rare and valuable life experiences that reminds you how fragile and precious each life really is.

Tabitha

We finally got in contact with Tabitha, the one NGO that we had a connection with before we left. We had our first chance to visit one of the villages participating in their programs. Tabitha is an organization that works to build communities and infrastructure. They have several projects that they run in villages that agree to work with them. They have programs such as house-building, savings and banking, well-digging, and others. It was cool to see what the savings program has done. Tabitha chooses the most poor communities and families and presents their program to them. Often it is difficult for the people to trust them to do what they say they will do and really help them. So the gist of it is that families will save a certain amount of money each week. They will give it to their community Tabitha representative who keeps it in a sort of bank. They are given 10% interest on everything they put in to the bank. They deposit a certain amount each week and then they receive the interest at the end of each 11-week cycle. The families, not the NGO, then decide what they need the most. They decide how and when to spend their savings. It was interesting to see what different families had chosen. Some improved their houses, invested in personal businesses, or purchased better modes of transportation. The beauty of what Tabitha is trying to do is in allowing families to make their own decisions and start to really help themselves. We will be going out for two full-days next week with one of Tabitha's full-time employees who works out in the various communities. She will be taking us out to a village that is just starting the program and also one that has recently graduated from Tabitha's program. We are hoping to gather some before-and-after information. It should be a good couple of days.

The Beach

This week was long and hard ... so we were all excited about our trip to the beach on Saturday. It turned out to be everything we hoped it would be. The weather was fabulous, the waves were perfect, and the place was beautiful. We got there in the morning and stayed until sunset. Hope you enjoy the pictures (can you spot the not in the first picture?).

Wedding Festivities

So the other day we had a chance to attend a traditional Cambodian wedding. It was actually the first one I have attended eventhough I've spent a great deal of time in Cambodia, so it was a treat for me and Jes seemed to enjoy it as well. Weddings and funerals are very important here. Everyone gets all dressed up and there is lots of food, music, and dancing. The bride and groom, as well as the wedding party, have special costumes that they wear. It is a loud, busy, and very lengthy affair. Guests often come in the evening, but usually wedding traditions and ceremonies have been going on for a day or so. I have one friend who told me that her wedding began in the afternoon and then went through the night (taking pictures and conducting special ceremonies with family) and into the next day until the guests arrived that evening. They were completely exhausted. It is one big, expensive, and very fun event that everyone looks forward to! I have included some pictures and a video from the wedding. I'm sorry if you get slightly nauseated watching the video! The quality isn't the best but you get the idea. :) Oh, I also added a picture of myself and one of my friends after she did my make-up as she would have if I were getting all dressed up for a wedding, which we did not get to do for the wedding we attended. Enjoy!

Friends

In all of my worry about our research projects and getting things settled for our trip, I forgot how many friends I have here. I feel so privileged to have so many people who care about me. There has been an outpouring of love, affection, and help from the people here. They are generous and self-sacrificing in so many ways! I often feel very lost for a way to fully express my thanks and affection...sometimes the only thing I do is to graciously accept what they so willingly offer (as hard as that is for me at times :) ). They are also incredibly physically affectionate within gender. I love this about them and thrive on it when I am here. I miss that type of communication and connection when I am back at home. I have included some pictures of just a few of the people that have done so much for us and that I have great respect and care for. We have definitely had some good times together so far!

Baseline

Today we visited one of the villages in Mozambique that Care for Life does not work with. The idea was to get a “baseline” so that we could better understand and see changes that may have occurred in villages that Care for Life has been working with. So we walked around to random houses in the village and asked people to describe their life to us, tell us things they wished they could change in their lives, and tell us a bit about what would help them make those changes. We tried to talk to people of different age groups (mostly young adults and older adults) and different gender to make our sample as varied as possible. It was informative but incredibly difficult. It was hard to have people share their experiences with me and talk about the things they needed. I felt so helpless and hopeless, which is exactly how these people feel. I wanted so bad to be able to improve their lives for them and give them hope but it was hard to do when all I had with them was 5 or 10 minutes and I wasn’t feeling much hope myself. The children, however, always make me smile. Despite the fact that their conditions are miserable and they live at a level of poverty that we can’t really begin to understand they are cheerful, and playful, and fun, and man can they dance! But the brightest spot on this trip to the village was a little boy wearing a “pair of glasses” of about the same size as mine – apparently large glasses are also “in” in Mozambique!

The fruit from hell

So this season not only brings an increase in rain here in Cambodia, but also an increase in the harvest of a popular fruit called durian. Almost every Cambodian I've ever met loves it, while most foreigners seem to avoid it like the plague. Durian is a large fruit that grows on a tree. It is kind of a dark, dirty green color on the outside and has spikes all over it (which should be a warning to anyone wanting to try it...or at least a foreboding sign of things to come!). The inside, once you get past the spikes and the tough shell, is a light yellow color with the consistency of a thick sticky goo when you bite into it. It also has a unique, vomit-inducing smell. Lucky for us, they are selling it everywhere right now so we can't go anywhere without getting a good whiff of it as we ride by!

Usually I can avoid durian or at least weasel myself out of any situation in which I might have to eat it. Unfortuately, I was not so successful at this the other day. Jes and I went to visit the family of one of my friends. They had made a special dessert. A durian sauce over sticky rice...which is actually a fabulously delicious treat with any other fruit. They also had fresh durian for us to eat. In their minds they were giving us a real delicacy. So there we were, caught between our survival instincts and our cultural sensitivity! What a bind! So I managed to down the durian sticky rice, but when I ventured to taste the fresh durian it was all over. Luckily, Jes began talking to them right as I gagged, deflecting the attention of the group at a critical moment. So just a warning to all of you potential travelers...Beware of the durian devil fruit!