Ode to Cambodia

It's always hard to convey to someone who has never been here before what exactly living in Cambodia is like. It also makes it harder to communicate the nuances of everyday life to friends over FaceTime or when recounting the year over beers in the summer. (It's why you should all come visit.) Everything we do here is indelibly linked to the country, both our personal lives and when we teach the "future of Cambodia."

Lately I have been trying to make note of things that strike me as typically Cambodian and also differ dramatically from life in the U.S. It's not always the most accurate to describe only the differences between two places instead of the similarities, but it can be more interesting...

Cambodia is a place where you hear music everywhere. Khmer and K-Pop blasting from mini-marts as you trundle by in a tuk-tuk, bags of groceries at your feet. Instrumental, more traditional music emanating from a wedding tent, used to alert the neighborhood to the nuptials, and also contributing a significant impact on local traffic patterns. At least you know when to slow down... Whether it is ten at night as I am trying to fall asleep or 6:15am when I am trying to remain asleep, chances are there is music floating through our window screens.

Cambodia is a place where the bodies of the dead from decades prior are tended by relatives or neighbors (or Liger security guards) after their families have moved on. If you walk down the driveway to Liger, just outside our gates are two old burial mounds. One is more removed, off in the trees on the left, but the other quite prominent, on the right hand side just at the edge of the path. When certain traditional holidays roll around, Khmer people decorate these graves with colored crepe paper and say prayers. Liger was built only two years ago, but the rumor is these mounds have existed for more than 60 years. "Just the bones now." New buildings go up and cities and towns expand, but the vestiges of those who came before us remain.

Cambodia is a place where two active, intelligent women in their late twenties, prefer to go roller-skating at 6am for fear of getting a tan. Where entire families on motorbikes wear long-sleeved shirts, gloves and face masks to avoid the rays of the sun that are ultimately inescapable in this country. It is a place where sitting with your feet up is considered disrespectful, but my students tell me "it's okay if you do it because you are not from here. But my grandma would tell you not to." The only proper way to sit is with both feet flat on the floor. No crossing your legs either, because "it will hurt your blood."

Cambodia is a place where typical rules and regulations cease to exist, both for the best and the worst. Reading a guided reader entitled "Laws for Kids" is basically like reading Russian for these kids. I have to stop and explain what a leash for a dog is, that people don't drop trash on the ground in the U.S. or you can get fined, and that there are specific places where you can and can't cross the street. I get crazy looks while explaining about washing machines and dryers, dish washers and in-door heating. On the other hand, we are constantly pushing these little minds to consider how to improve their country, and that perhaps a law about wearing helmets when on a moto would be a good thing to enforce. Recently, two different groups of students began studying some major issues in Cambodia: the environmental impact of plastics, including burning plastic trash, and the state of electricity and electrical safety.

Cambodia is a country with massive potential, as echoed by most people who have been here. I compare my students today with who they were a year ago, and am amazed. I recently took three girls out for smoothies and manicures, the result of our first school-wide auction. A year ago they would have been timid and shy, speaking mainly to each other in Khmer. This experience was exactly the opposite. Three confident, emotionally open girls jumped into the tuk-tuk with me, full of questions and connections to share about manicures they had had before with aunts or mothers before weddings or birthdays or holidays. They commanded the tuk-tuk driver in Khmer and amazed him with their English abilities. They spoke eagerly to the manicurists, discovering that Sokea was from the same province as the girl painting her fingernails bright pink. They told the nail artists about Liger, about how they came to be at Passion Spa on a Thursday night and left the salon laughing at the image of one upper-class Khmer woman who had three separate treatments happening simultaneously.

As we walked over to grab a smoothie, they shared with me how their transition to speaking only English during the school day was going. Sokea had earned her two-day pin, the other two were still working towards it and could recount the exact moment when they had faltered, the exact Khmer words that had led to their downfall. "But we just have to show determination," they said. As we sat and waited for our banana mango drinks, there was a funky-looking man painting a mural of fairies on the wall. He had his headphones in, was shirtless, displaying a massive tattoo across the better part of his back, had a shaved head and a long, thin beard rubber banded into sections...all in all, someone the girls might have gawked at a few months ago. But now they are comfortable: "Can we ask him how long it took to do this? Did he design it all?" They couldn't keep their eyes off him -- this from a girl who has no running water in her house, and whose ten-year-old sister has taken on the job of caretaker for her disabled father in her absence. I had to catch his attention, but they were able to speak to him in English and get all their questions answered. Beaming smiles, neon orange name tags in place, these girls are a microcosm of making global connections and becoming the next generation of Cambodian change agents.

Cambodia is a place where roosters crow at all hours of the day (and night). Where my walk to work is impeded by overripe mangos, splitting at the seams and covered in ants. Stepping in it is the equivalent of stepping in dog poo, causing the students to burst out laughing as you hop on one foot, covered in mango slime. Where one of my students regales me with stories of his "holiday job" herding cows and water buffalo in Siem Reap. "You have to make sure they don't get hit by a car. Sometimes there are babies, but also big ones." Here, the frogs chorus so loudly that at times it overtakes our school building in the morning and its hard to have a conversation. A few months ago, while washing the dishes and looking out the window, I saw a slight movement and was horrified and amazed to see a shiny, bright green snake about two feet long, lounging amid the leaves and branches. It was so well camouflaged that it might have been there for days without me noticing. It is a place where the snails are huge but still just as slow; I find myself aiding in their survival, moving them out of the path of the Liger Lexus.

With only six more weeks before we head home for the summer, I am trying to take the time to appreciate what we have here. The differences can often be annoying or inconvenient, but they are also what make this place a stimulating and challenging, worthwhile place to be.