My last day of the journey

Last night we had our last dinner together as a group at a “unique” restaurant called Cabbages & Condoms. It was a theme restaurant promoting safe sex habits. It is in response to the large HIV/AIDS prevalence in Thailand. The food was really good!

Today, nine of us took a day long excursion towards the Burma border. We went elephant riding, visited the bridge made famous by the movie The Bridge over River Kwai, petted tigers at a tiger reserve, and hiked into a neat temple cave. All of this took place near the Burma border. It was a really good day to end our time together.

I just finished packing and am getting ready to go out to dinner with some of my colleagues. The van to take five of us to the airport will be at our hotel at 3:00 AM. I plan on being back in Atlanta on the 26th sometime around 6:30 PM.

Thanks for everyone that followed my trip on this blog. Also, thanks for your emails while I was in Thailand and Cambodia. It was fun to have friends connected to this wonderful experience.

I’m saddened that this will be my last blog entry. It has been an incredible journey.

Goodbye from Bangkok!

My near detention and a sad day for us all

Today was our last day in Phnom Penh. I went to buy a group present for Gwen, our instructional leader for the program, at the Foreign Correspondents Club (FCC) and on my return I stopped at the U.S. Embassy to take some pictures of the building. I have been wanting to take these pictures since our arrival in Phnom Penh last week, but have put it off until our last day here. As I was happily snapping away, a security guard (dressed much like a military soldier) approached me from his guard shack outside the embassy and asked me to come inside. I thought that he was being so nice to allow me to come inside to take some up close photos. As soon I was in the gate, two other much less happy “soldiers” came over and asked for my camera. Again, I thought they were being nice to offer to take my picture with the inside walls of the embassy in the background. “Do they do this for all U.S. citizens,” I thought to myself. However, soon I realized that was not the case. They asked me for my camera and started to interrogate me about why I was taking pictures of the embassy. They also asked if I was a U.S. citizen and if I had my passport. Of course, my passport was tucked in my hotel room’s safe. I had no identification on me. They continued to look through my camera’s memory admiring my pictures. I started to have visions of being blindfolded and taken into some basement prison cell to never be heard from again. This past week, there has been a huge story in Cambodian newspaper about a missing activist monk who was recently defrocked. Maybe I would meet him in my cell and we would converse about Cambodia and the sense of lawlessness that exists. Even though I was at our American embassy, the security guards were Cambodian. Well, after about 10 minutes, they gave me my camera back and commented that they don’t like it when people take pictures of the embassy. I said I understood and took my camera and walked quickly out of the gates to a grassy area across the street. I took a picture and left.

It was a somewhat sad day for us all as we drove to the Phnom Penh airport to fly to Bangkok for the last stage of our trip. All of us were melancholy as we were bused to the airport. We knew our journey in Cambodia was over and it was the beginning of the end of our time together. In just a few days were would be flying back separately to our former lives in the U.S. We will be reunited with our friends, children, spouses, and beloved pets. Although most are happy to get back to a routine, we also realize that this experience will never be duplicated and has been special. On the ride to the airport, we all commented on how sad it is that we are leaving Cambodia. It definitely has become a special place for us all and we have connected with the people of this wonderful country.

In our last debriefing session with Namji on Saturday, she mentioned that many of us may have a challenge with our reentry to our former lives. I can definitely understand what she may be talking about as this has been a trip that could never be duplicated. We will never be given access to a country like we have been given by this program. We were not simply tourists, but also participants and students of Cambodia. It was a special experience for me and most of my colleagues in the program. It may be a challenge to assimilate back into our culture at home. I can definitely anticipate potential culture shock on our return to the U.S.

We arrived back to Bangkok and have until the 24th to explore the city. We only have two more meetings and then the rest of the two days are left up to us to play.

Torture Chambers and Killing Fields

Yesterday (Thursday), was a very full and sad day for everyone in our group. In the morning we visited Tuol Sleng, also known as S-21. This was the main Khmer Rouge prison in Phnom Penh during the regime. It was used mainly to interrogate and torture people, suspected enemies of the regime and/or former members of the Khmer Rouge. It is still in its original condition, now used to remind people of the horrors of the Khmer Rouge era (1975-79). It was a high school until the KR converted it into their torture chambers. Of the estimated 14,000 people that passed through Tuol Sleng (S-21), only 7 survived. Of those 7, there is only 1 living today. And we met him yesterday!

He met us at S-21; walking slowly with his hands crossed in front of him he approached our group with sullen, saddened eyes and a grim look on his face. His name is Vann Nath and he is a painter. He is famous around Cambodia for surviving Tuol Sleng and for his paintings depicting real torture scenes from his stay in the prison. Some of these paintings are at the prison. He walked around with us and explained the various paintings and gave a little background on each one. He explained that he saw certain tortures himself or one of the torture victims told him how the Khmer Rouge would tortured that individual. When the KR was forced out in 1979, Mr. Nath started to paint these scenes from his memory. We were very lucky to have a private audience with the only current survivor of the torture chambers of this hell on earth.

When Mr. Nath completed his descriptions of the paintings at the prison, he entertained our questions. We had many. “Did you see these horrible things yourself?” “How long after you survived the prison did you start to paint these scenes?” “What do you think of the Khmer Rouge Trials?” “Have you ever confronted any of the guards of the prison since you have been out of the prison?” We asked a lot of questions to him while we also snapped photos of him. Other people visiting the museum prison started to guess that someone very special was there because we were crowded around him taking pictures and asking him questions and stuffing voice recorders in his face. Several other people gathered around to join us in hearing him answer our questions. I finally asked him, “What was special about the 7 people that enabled them to survive this horrible place, when nearly 14,000 others did not survive.” He went through the seven people and mentioned a special technical skill that each one had that the KR needed. His special skill was to paint portraits of Pol Pot. He also said all the portraits were destroyed when the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and freed the people from the Khmer Rouge in 1978. We all felt very luck to meet the only survivor of these torture chambers. It was interesting because this yesterday morning, hours before our visit, we read a front page article in the newspaper (The Cambodia Daily) about Mr. Nath and his frustration with the ECCC (Khmer Rouge Trials) in the delay in getting the trials started and his lack of faith in the courts getting justice for all the horrible things that the Khmer Rouge inflicted on its on people.

After visiting the prison and meeting with Mr. Nath, we immediately headed to Choeung Ek about a half hour’s drive outside the city. Choeung Ek is better known as one of the “Killing Fields” were the KR murdered and buried millions of people in mass graves. I can hardly explain the impression this place left on all of us. First, we saw a monument erected that is several stories high and full of skulls collected from the mass graves. It was very chilling! You could see how many of the people died by bullet holes in the skulls, blunt force trauma, or a cracked skull. Most of the people that were killed there were forced to kneel over an open pit blindfolded, and they were hit on the skull with a shovel or end of a rifle and fell into the grave on top of other bodies. It was so hard to visible be reminded of such horrors as you walked around the excavated pits and could see clothing and small bones embedded in the dirt that are actual remnants of the victims. We bent down and touched these dead people’s bones and clothes! One of my colleagues found a human tooth! It was a part of someone who was murdered and/or tortured for no reason. She held in her hand and walked around contemplating what to do with it. What would I do it I had found such a thing? Do you keep it? Maybe take it home and put it in a box as a personal reminder of human suffering and pain? Or, maybe bury it somewhere on the Killing Fields, giving it its proper rest? Or, would I place the tooth somewhere in the Killing Fields for the public to view as they walked through as another reminder of the senseless tragedy that Cambodians endured.

In the afternoon, some of our group participated in a workshop by a filmmaker who has worked on the East-West Center’s Asian International Justice Initiative films. He helped develop a series of outreach films to be taken out into the rural villages to help explain and educated the villagers about the Khmer Rouge Trials. It was a great workshop as he solicited our ideas about how we would go about developing such a project. It was very interactive with engaging discussion from the group.

Finally, after dinner we met with Sok Chea, the subject of the video we saw yesterday, Deacon of Death: Looking for Justice in Today’s Cambodia. Sok Chea started off talking about her story and her quest for justice in confronting Mr. Karoby, the man she remembers killing many people in her village when she was six years old. As she got further into her talk one could feel her sense of frustration with the ECCC and as she continued she started to get very emotional about the subject until she was crying heavily about the subject. She mentioned what it was like to experience her mother being blindfolded and told to kneel down and almost being killed by the Khmer Rouge. She also recounted seeing the soldiers hang someone up and cutting their abdominal cavity open while they were hanging and soldiers eating human livers with palm wine. It was very obvious that she has never healed from this experience. She still waits for justice to occur.

It was a very hard day as we did a lot and had to contemplate on death the whole day.

An Intense Documentary

Yesterday morning, we had a great time at the Royal University of Phnom Penh as we met with a couple of faculty members, one being a Maryknoll nun and the other an Aussie volunteer. The nun gave us a quick history lesson of the complicated politics in Cambodia and foreign involvement. She talked very straight from the hip and reminded me of an iconic nun figure. She was interesting to listen to and simplified the history for our group. One of her comments was that in the span of 60 years almost every political philosophy has been present at some point in this country. As a result, this has produced a lot of cynicism from the people towards the government. In my village stay, I immensely sensed this in my many conversations with the villagers and with my host, Kosal. In private conversations (they are reluctant to speak in front of too many people about politics), they consistently commented on their lack of faith and confidence in the government. I realize Americans complain about our government, but we can wake up every day assured that our roads are paved, our water is clean (unless you live in Atlanta!), traffic lights are working, etc. However, the people in Cambodia do not wake up every day with confidence that will be the case in their lives. Also, with such an extreme political patronage system (which is a nice way to described corruption); they do not trust or feel any power in the situation. They seemed resigned to accept the situation, which is understandable considering their history of political instability.

After our meeting with the two university faculty members, university student joined us as we watched a movie together called, “Deacon of Death: Looking for Justice in Cambodia.” It was about a lady (Sok Chea) who revisits her village and a Mr. Karoby, who she feels murdered many people or ordered the murder of many of her villagers during the Khmer Rouge era. The movie is about her getting the courage to go back and confront him about his actions. We are having dinner with Sok Chea, the “star” of the documentary, tonight! We then had a discussion with the university students about the movie and got their perspective on the movie and the Khmer Rouge Trials coming up. We then had lunch with the students. Their English was not great, but we could communicate fairly well.

Today, we are visiting Tuol Sleng which was a high school that the Khmer Rouge converted into a prison during their regime. It is estimated that over 14,000 people came through the prison and only 7 survived their stay. One of the survivors, who is an artist, is meeting us there at 8:30 to talk to us. It should be exciting as he paints scenes from his stay there of the torture and killings that went on in the prison. He was on the front page of the paper this morning because he spoke out against the delays and complications the ECCC (Khmer Rouge Trials) were having. We are very lucky to have an audience with him.

After visiting Tuol Sleng, we are headed to the “Killing Fields” to see where many of the executed were buried by the Khmer Rouge.

I will try to post more about my home stay (days 3, 4, and 5) later today.

I'm in Phnom Penh

Hello. I'm finally back posting after my home stay of five days. It was an INCREDIBLE experience! I have so much to write about and such little time as our program is really busy from now until we leave for Bangkok on the 22nd. I'm in Phnom Penh now, having arrived last night from our village, which is north of here. We are staying at the finest hotel in Cambodia, the Raffles Royal Hotel. It was used in the filming of "The Killing Fields," which was a movie shot in the late 70s depicting the Khmer Rouge era and associated execution of 1.7 million Cambodians. We are visiting some of the real "killing fields" tomorrow, located just outside Phnom Penh. This hotel is really nice and really big! It was used by the Khmer Rouge as their headquarters, which is why is survived and is in its original condition. It feels weird staying here after our home stay, which was with villagers of very modest means (no flush toilets, no refrigerators, etc.). Anyway, today we are busy meeting with university students and faculty to be followed by a visit to Rehab Craft Cambodia, a nonprofit "fair trade" organization. So, during my home stay I could not post because no one in the village had Internet access. But, I wrote my posts long hand and will post them over the next couple of days. I hope you enjoy!


Home Stay-Day 1 -Thursday, July 12

I arrived earlier tonight to our home stay. We all arrived to a general meeting at Mr. Wa’s house. As we stepped off our bus there were a line of people greeting us and passing out lotus wreaths-they smell awesome! They called our names out and matched us up to sit with our hosts. My host is Meach Senkosal (called “Kosal”). He is 28 and has a son (Proseth) who is 3 and a wife Chanthy. We are actually staying at his uncle and aunts house, where he lives for four days of the week when he teaches at the local high school. Also living at my house with Kosal and Proseth is his aunt (Sokhei) and his cousins (Charya and Nita). He travels to Phnom Penh on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday to spend with his wife and son, who lives there while he teaches in my village, which is Tep Pranam. Although he is trained as a mathematics teacher, he teaches 9th grade English because he knows some English.

After the general meeting, we all load back up in our bus to take us to our houses. Kosal road his “motorbike” to the meeting, so he says he will meet me at the house. I quickly spot his “motorbike” and surmise that “motorbike” means scooter. His family doesn’t say much to me as he introduces me. I’m a little nervous after the introductions because they seem really scared of me. He shows me my room and I’m somewhat relived to find out that I have my own room, living room, and restroom that is all a separate building from the others. I throw my stuff down and admire the new, pink mosquito net over my bed.

Kosal comes in and summons me to come have dinner with him. He and I go out to a small, covered shelter in his yard where several covered dishes are waiting for us. His family does not eat with us as we begin to talk to each other. His English is very broken and somewhat hard to understand. I have to really concentrate to try to catch every 5th or 6th word that he speaks as his pronunciation is very cloudy. He explains that he lives here with his aunt and uncle (who is away grading national exams in Phnom Penh), his brother (who is at the University), Proseth (his son), Rasmek (his sister who is a primary school teacher), Linna (his cousin), and Nita (his cousin). They all are wandering around, but do not come and eat with us.

Kosal explains that his mother and father are rice and tobacco farmers that live in another province far from here. His aunt and uncle have supported his schooling, since his parents could not afford to do so because they struggle to survive on farming. His aunt and uncle also pay for his brother and sister’s schooling.

It is a difficult dinner as it is so hard to understand each other. His English is very broken and the Khmer pronunciations do not always translate well into English. But, we manage to finish our dinner of rice (surprise!), vegetables, and assorted meats. The food is really good! Everyone heads to bed after we finish dinner which is great as I’m exhausted from the anxiety of meeting Kosal and his family along with the complexity of trying to strain to communicate with him. I’m not feeling so great with the possibility of spending five days with people I can’t verbally communicate with regularly. It could be a long five days!





Home Stay Day 2-Friday, July 13

We wake up this morning for an 8:00 meeting at the Khmer coordinator of the home stay’s house. They have us divided up into 5 communities and I’m in community 2. Everyone in community 1 and 2 meets at one of the houses down the road from my house at 8:00. We take an excursion to a pagoda outside of town. The head monk at the pagoda was killed around 3 years ago and they never captured the murder. The pagoda is beautiful, much newer and cleaner than any of the the other pagoda I’ve seen here in Cambodia. It is also really huge, with many buildings. We visit one building with a was statue of the dead monk and next to his statue, a couple of steps elevated above us is, to my surprise, the preserved body of the dead monk. They have him encased in a glass coffin which is climate controlled. He definitely looks dead! We then spend the rest of the morning walking up to another temple (more like a shrine) up a mountain-the only such hill in the surrounding villages. It is actually a lot of fun, but everyone is tired when we are completed.

When Kosal and I return to the house his aunt has lunch prepared for us and we eat at the shelter again-this will become our usual dinning spot for Kosal and me. His aunt, sister, and cousin all eat near the kitchen, which is outside the house. The kitchen is primitive by our American standards, it is outside and the oven is nothing but wood that they burn in an open pit. There is no refrigerator, garbage disposal, running water, etc.-just an open pit to put wood to burn to heat water for rice or fry veggies. The aunt goes to the market everyday to get fresh food for the day. With no refrigeration, this is the only way to have daily fresh food. The market is crazy! It is the busiest place I’ve seen. People everywhere, food everywhere, goods everywhere-all compacted in a series of open “stalls” that people can go and buy food, hardware items, clothes, etc. It is so busy and parts of it smell due to the meat (just lying out in the open for people to inspect) and other enticing products for sale. It is unlike anything we have at home. They also sell crickets and other assorted bugs for consumption. Luckily, Kosal and his aunt do not offer any bugs to me!
I take a long nap which is awesome! It is so hot and humid here that just laying down and not moving feels really good. Any attempt to not create energy or extra sweat is huge. Luckily, I have a fan in my room, so I point it towards my bed and the wind searches its way through the minute cracks of my mosquito net to sooth me as I sleep. It’s better than a sleeping blanket!

Stay tuned. There is more to come...

Landmines, Sad Orphans, and Creatures in my Pants

It's 10:00 am in Siem Reap and I'm at an Internet cafe having just finished packing for our home stay visit for the next five days. We leave at 12 for a nearly five hour drive to the villages of our home stay. So, we had this morning free to ourselves which has been nice to walk around the old market section of town. I ended up buying two gongs that are made out of recycled bomb shells collected and made by local villagers.

Yesterday, we went to a war museum. It was a small yard full of old, rusty tanks, guns, bombs, landmines, etc. The "guide" only had one leg and lost his wife three years ago as a result of stumbling on a landmine while she was searching for mushrooms in the forest. He said it happened about 20 kilometers from here. He also said most of his family was killed by the Khmer Rouge. I've heard the figure of 500 deaths a year occur from landmines left over from 30 years of war in this country.

Also, yesterday we made our final visit to the orphanage. They literally came running on our bus when we arrived-so happy to see us again. We played a really fun game with them where two people are blindfolded and placed in the middle of circle of people and one c laps while the other tries to catch him/her. Everyone in the circle will yell and shout when they are close to each other. It seemed like a favorite of the orphans. We had a great time with it. We also handed out pencils, notebooks, and some candy to them. It was amazing how they were really polite and appreciative of the gifts. They were patient, not reaching and grabbing, as we went around and passed out the materials, and so polite in accepting them. They would be great role models for my affluent students in Atlanta. In the end it was really sad when we had to leave. Many of them cried. It was horrible! I could hardly stand to see it. I can't imagine the people that come and go in their lives. It has to leave a huge scare that they carry with them for the rest of their lives.

Last night, I went back to visit and talk with the German lady and her Cambodian husband at the night market. She runs a non-profit during the day that has two preschools and has the shop at the night market in the evening. She started the non-profit nearly 12 years ago. Since I interviewed her husband earlier about his father being killed by the Khmer Rouge he said that he read in the paper that the Khmer Rouge Tribunals were asking for more money to carry on the war crime trials. 56 million has been budgeted for the Tribunals, but it seems like more will be needed. Many people question the purpose of these expense trials when many villagers do not care or have any confidence in the government (the trials are a collaboration between he government and the UN) that the leaders of the Khmer Rouge will be shown justice. Also, many of the current government members were once Khmer Rouge members.

The prices here are ridiculously low. What is even more startling is that in Phnom Penh, evidently they are even more low. It funny because even though the prices are low, I seem to be spending a lot of money.

The heat here has been horrible! No breezes-just humidity. I can't even imagine what it is going to be like sleeping in our home stays without air conditioning. I'm not looking forward to that aspect of the home stay.

Last night while I was walking around town I came upon an accident in the road. A bus had hit a man on a scooter. The ambulance was approaching as I came upon the scene. I didn't see the injured man because there were many people surrounding him in the street. There are not many cars here (because people can't afford them) and tons of scooters. I'm surprised there are not more accidents because there are not lanes in the streets, everyone just drives wherever they want or need to go without hitting anyone. Also, motorized vehicles have the right of way. Pedestrians have to yield to cars, scooters, etc. Then throw in tuk-tuks and it is a huge mess! Crossing the street is a high-risk adventure.

We were having a meeting yesterday morning and suddenly I felt something aggressively crawling up my leg, underneath my pants. I instinctively jump up and screamed and started to try to kill the perpetrator prancing its way up my leg to my crotch area. Well, everyone in the program was just as startled as I was when I jumped up in the middle of the meeting as Gwen, one of the leaders, was talking and started to jump around like a possessed demon. So...I said something is in my pants and crawling up my leg and darted off to the bathroom so I could find the creature that was getting way too comfortable with my body. Now, by the time I reached the restroom I could feel it digging into my underwear. And it was big! I was a bit nervous because of its perceived size. The notion of a gecko in my pants was running streaking through my mind. Or, a scorpion...maybe a giant cockroach...or a baby cobra! I ripped my belt open and flung my pants down in the restroom and out jumped the biggest, baddest, ugliest cricket I have ever seen smiling at me as it hit the ground next to my foot. My immediate reaction was to stomp on it, but as it smugly smiled at me, I wished to leave this predominantly Buddhist country with good karma so I just threatened to eat him if he didn't leave me alone. I then ran out of the restroom to escape his reach. When I returned to the meeting everyone stopped in mid-sentence anxiously awaiting a description of the perp. Hopefully, that will be my last encounter with creatures invading my personal space.

I will try to post if my village has Internet connections. If not, my next post will by on the 17th or 18th. Did I mention that Cambodia is 11 hours ahead of Atlanta?

An American in Cambodia Interesting Fact of the Day: Bridget (a.k.a Beth, Sam, Betty) ate a silk worm at our visit yesterday to the Angkor Artisans.

Floating villages and traditional dancing

Sour sdei! (that's "good day" in Khmer)

I back with Internet connection after another spotty day of connectivity. I went running this morning and once again, the streets were packed very early in the AM. I'm sure they look at me like a stupid foreigner running in the morning with my running shorts and shoes. I have yet to see any other runners, which is so odd, as I always see at least a couple of people running in the morning no matter where I am travelling.



Yesterday we had another Khmer language and culture class in the morning taught by Mr. Sna. We went over basic Khmer phrases and FAQs, such as "Where is the bathroom?" (Teor born tup teuk nour a na?) and "No, thank you." (Te, or kun lork)


The night before, we divided our group up into threes and went out into the Siem Reap area with Khmer yuppies. They just toured us around the city on our tuk-tuks, which are scooters with small carriages connected to them. It was fun as we had a really awesome man with us. He was 23 and worked in archeology for the government. Since the huge ancient temple Angor Wat is here, that made a lot of sense. One of the stops we made on our tuk-tuk was to a Khmer grocery store to load up on snacks to take to our home stay in case we don't like their food much.

Yesterday, everyone had an awesome time visiting the Tonle Sap lake community. Tonle Sap Lake is a huge lake in Cambodia-it stretches all the way from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh. We stopped at a floating restaurant to take pictures of the lake on its rooftop deck. The highlight was seeing all the floating houses that people live in on the lake. They survive by fishing and their houses are more like shacks on logs. They are all very poor and just barely can make a living. We visited with one household, docking and coming into their house. The house was so small and 13 people lived in it. I do not know how that many people could even sleep in such a small space. The family was really nice to sit down with us and answer our questions through our interpreter guide. The mother was proud of her children and pointed out all of them on a wall full of wedding pictures and other family photos.


They asked us how much it had cost us to come to Cambodia and when we gave them a figure they literally let out a very audible gasp! They could not comprehend the amount of money that we could afford to spend as their cost of living is on a totally different scale and our ability to travel is beyond them as they are just trying to sustain their lives by fishing for pennies a day. The father told us that he has worked all his life (he looked in his late 60s, but probably was older) and he could not do something such as travel to the U.S. and how was it that we could? It put us in our place in terms of realizing how fortunate we are to be able to something like this program and the quality of life that we enjoy and have come to feel entitled to have in America. The lake community was really fascinating. We saw a floating police station, school, basketball court, and stores.


In the afternoon, some of us went back to the orphanage that we have now visited three times. It was so much fun because the kids now feel so comfortable with us. We played around with them for a couple of hours before we had to leave to come back to the hotel. I saw my buddy, Yum, who was eagerly waiting for us as we walked up the dirt pathway to the orphanage. I talked to the director for awhile about him and she said that he does not go to school anymore because he repeated 2nd grade four times because he could not pass the exit exam. She thinks that his mother was died from alcoholism and I'm sure this is true as he has some physical characteristics of fetal alcohol syndrome. But, he has a wonderful spirit that everyone really enjoys. He was so happy to see us!


The non-profit that supports the orphanage is amazing! They also work with the orphans in a traditional dance and puppet troupe. The kids performed for us last night at dinner at La Noir restaurant, which is run by the non-profit. The kids were fabulous in their traditional dress dancing to traditional music. It was interesting to see the contrast between their confidence at the orphanage and in their performance. At the orphanage they seem timid, non-assured, and lack self-confidence. But, in the performance they looked so poised and confident. It was satisfying to see that they had that one area of their life that they felt good about-which they should as they were very talented.

Some of us went to the Red Piano, a restaurant/bar, after dinner to hang out for a bit. Our server was a pre-school teacher during the day and works at the restaurant at night. She only make $35/month teaching, so she works at the restaurant to pay for English lessons. I found her English to be better than any I've heard in Cambodia. It is really hard to understand when Cambodians speak English as their pronunciation is much more nasal than our pronunciation, which tends to be more from the throat. So, a Cambodian may be speaking correct English, but it is hard to understand-even with the guides and translators we have had on the trip. Her family has rice patties and she does not want to plant rice or live that sort of life as it is a very hard life.


Today, in the morning (9:00) we are breaking up into three different groups and rotating through the following: 1) Landmine Museum, 2) Cambodian Living Arts project, and 3) visit a craft cooperative practicing "fair trade." We should be done around 3:00 and we have the rest of the evening on our own to pack for our home stay and relaxed. I'm thinking about hiring a tuk-tuk to take me out exploring in the countryside to explore.


We leave for our home stay tomorrow and everyone is getting a little anxious, but also very excited! I may not be able to post until we are done with the home stay on the 17th and we are in Phnom Penh. But, if I can find an Internet cafe to post I will.

A cool monk, orphans, and cockroaches

I'm back after a very spotty two days of Internet connection. I have so much to write about it's hard to even begin.

One of peculiar, but logical aspects of Cambodia is that many children do not have grandparents. The reason is because during the Khmer Rouge era, Pol Pot and his men killed so many of the population (estimated 1.7 million) that the children today are left with no or only one grandparent. Also, the medical and dental care here is horrible! There is a hospital in Siem Reap in the middle of the town, but it is really of the bare minimal. People will carry their sick to the hospital for treatment on carts, scooters, or in their arms. We say a very old lady being tranported in a cart-she looked like she was dying. We also saw many people walking to the hospital with IVs stuck in their arms-just walking down the street. It is a sight we never see in the U.S.

As I mentioned above, the government does not provide any services to its citizens, so NGOs (non-governments organizations) that are non-profits have established themselves here and fill in these needs, as much as possible. We visited one yesterday-The Life and Hope Association-that is run by Buddhist monks. They run five different centers: a vocational sewing school, a children's development village, street kids project, an orphanage, and they are starting a junior high school. The director is a very cool monk named Somnieng Hoern. He is 27 and studied for a couple of years in Iowa until he lost his visa. He speaks good English (which I find very difficult to find here) and is really impressive with his focus on the orphanage and his foundation. We visited the orphanage yesterday and today, so we are starting to get to know some of the kids there. Today we spent about 1.5 hours playing games with them. There is one little boy there who attached himself to me and when I came back today he immediately ran to me and hugged me really hard. He then proceeded to just follow me around the entire time holding my hand. The kids there were so great-just wanting interaction and love. The orphanage is outside Siem Reap and it felt like it was in the middle of the jungle, but I don't think it was that far outside the city. We get to go back to the orphanage two more times this week.

Also, last night I went and interviewed a man who lost his dad to the Khmer Rouge when he was 7. I met his wife at the night market the previous evening and we struck up a conversation while I was in her stall of locally produced goods she was selling. She asked what I was doing in Cambodia and from there we started talking about the tribunal coming up and she then told me about her husband's father. I asked her if he would be willingly to talk to me about his father and she arranged for him to be at the market last night for me to talk to her. I ended up interviewing him for nearly 40 minutes-asking him questions about his recollections of that period in his life. He remembers the last time he saw his dad was when he was running after his dad crying to come back as the Khmer Rouge (dressed in all black) were taking his father away on a bicycle. He never returned. His dad was educated, so part of the Khmer Rouge ideology was to eliminate the educated class. He also said that there were very little older men in his village because the KR had "taken away" most of them. I also aked him of his awareness of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal that was forming and what most villagers thought of this. He said that he had heard some about it, but not much, and that most people don't know anything about it and aren't really concerned with it because they don't trust the government and think nothing will come of it anyway. They don't teach about this in the schools here. Most kids do not understand what reall ocurred in this country during the 70s.

Today, we went to a tree planting event in the fishing village of Kampong Kleng. This was amazing! The people of this village sustain themselves with fish and some farming. They are very poor-many of the kids only go to school through 2nd or 3rd grade because they are needed to help work to support the family. Their housed were very simple wooden boxes built on stilts to avoid the floods during the rainy season. It looked like a row of tree houses. They had no flush toilets and literally pumped water from the river into their homes. They had no refrigerators, t.v.s, radios, no phones, etc. I can't even begin to explain what it was like to see this village. Many of the villagers let us climb up to their houses and look inside. So far on this trip, it has been my favorite aspect of the program.

I met a man in the old market of town that was a former policeman who stepped on a landmine. He was selling books on the streets. He modeled his scared up torso and limbs for arms.

Tomorrow morning we have a Cambodian language and culture lesson. I wish we could have a cooking lesson! Afterwards, we are going to explore Siem Reap with local guides to practice our Khmer on the locals. At night we are viewing Rice People by Rithy Pan.

I rode an elephant yesterday at Angkor Wat.

I saw a monkey and took a picure with it yesterday.

Cock roaches are sold in the market for consumption.

The village families have designed cricket catchers that captures crickets so they can eat them.

Today's An American in Cambodia Interesting Fact of the Day: Kayli's boyfriend is a rock star!

Cambodia Corruption and Orphans

We arrived in Siem Reap, Cambodia, last night at 7:00. We had a very short (40 minute) flight from Bangkok. I've read alot about the corruption in the Cambodian government, so it was not surprising that when we were going through the visa line, they asked for 1,000 Thai bagt, when several of us didn't have any bagt on us, they asked for $20 US dollars. Now..1,000 bagt is equal to nearly $33 US dollars, not $20. Once we paid, they passed our passports down a line of about 6 other government workers until it reached one individual who proceeded to call out the names on the passports. It was funny to hear the Cambodian official shout our names with a butchering Khmer accent.

Cambodia is surreal. It is so different than Bangkok. When we were driving to our hotel from the airport is was so dark outside because there were no street lights. It made for an eerie feeling. After checking in our hotel several of us decided to venture out for dinner to the Old Town part of Siem Reap, but first I needed to hit an ATM. After getting directions, I stepped outside to walk to the ATM and immediately I was literally grabbed by a young man who pulled me into his tuk-tuk (a motorcycle taxi). I told him that I wanted to go to the ATM and he said something in Khmer to his friend who jumped in the tuk-tuk with me. I sensed something was up and pushed my way out of the tuk-tuk and ran back into the hotel. I've learned to trust my instincts and they were raging when the friend jumped into the tuk-tuk with me. After what I experienced at the airport, I thought it was best to get out of the tuk-tuk really fast.
Today (I can't even remember what day it is, but I think it is July 6), after a meeting in the middle of the day, we went to two centers that we will be working with on Sunday-an orphanage and a school for the deaf and blind. Both centers were really emotional to visit. Both sets of children were so happy to see or hear us! I can't even begin to explain the orphanage-sleeping on bunks with no mattresses, no electricity, minimal material possessions. The kids were really fun to engage with on our visit. We all felt so bad for them! The orphanage was out of the city someways, and it felt like in the middle of the jungle. There were surrounding huts that other families lived in that were basically plywood on stilts. It is so hard to put in words what we all were feeling, other than by the grace of god we were not born into that life. Some of us, will be returning on for three more days to work with these children with the intent that we build relationships with them.

I went to dinner with about 8 other members of our group at The Soup Dragon. It was excellent! I had Khmer chicken with lemongrass. I love Khmer food! I believe it is the most tasty food I have ever had (excluding Waffle House). The spices used in Cambodian food are yum! It is similar to Thai, but more of a distinct "kick" to it. I want to buy a cookbook with traditional Khmer recipes to take home.

After dinner, I went to the night market while everyone else went back to the hotel. It is advised that we do not walk alone at night as there is no street lights and the sense of lawlessness that permeates the city. But, I couldn't resist going to the night market because I've read that there were many goods produced by Cambodian artists being sold there. I met one of the shop owners who was German and had a husband whose father was killed by the Khmer Rouge. She invited me back tomorrow night to interview her husband if I was interested in hearing what it was like to live through that period as he was scheduled to be there tomorrow night. It will be interesting to hear what he has to say.

We have to be ready to go tomorrow at 5:oo am to travel to Angkor Wat-the huge temple that many people know from Indiana Jones. We are planning to get there to see the sunrise.

I'm so glad we are in Cambodia. This country is really fascinating!

This country is really poor. There are scooter and bicycles everywhere. No one wears a helmet, not even small children riding on the back of a scooter or motorcycle.

The Thai Way

Today is our last day in Bangkok before we leave for Cambodia tomorrow morning at 8:30. We got a picture of our host family in Cambodia at our daily debriefing this morning. Namji, our program director, also went over some does and don'ts of Cambodian culture to help prep us for the stay which occurs on July 17-22. We still have alot of people to meet before we begin the home stay.

One aspect of the Thai culture that I've noticed (and read about) is the idea of "going with the flow." The Thai people actually look down on people that become aggressive or pushy, especially in public. You don't see people waiting in line getting angry or upset, in fact it is not socially acceptable to exhibit such behavior. Everyone seems so much calmer, even in Bangkok, which is a very large city (10 million). I am sure this is a reflection of the Buddhist influence in a country where 95% of the population are Buddhist. America could use a good dose of Buddhism! Also, the people on the streets are so much more polite than in the U.S. People actually try to give each other space and are not aggressive in claiming space to walk. What I have experienced is a much more polite, calmer society.

I am still thinking about the panel discussion last night regarding the Khmer Rouge war crimes tribunal. It will be exciting to be in Cambodia and to actually ask Cambodians their thoughts on the tribunal or that period in general. Most people in their 30s and above have been affected by this genocide and most have lost family members.

We are going to an open Thai market later today. This is a market where the merchants bargain to sell their goods. It is a night market that opens at 6. Everyone in the program is excited to have a day where we can explore the city on our own.

I am planning on having Internet access in Siem Reap, Cambodia, but I am not so sure it will be as reliable as Bangkok. Hopefully, I will be able to continue my posting tomorrow from Cambodia.

Happy 4th of July!

An American in Bangkok Interesting Fact of the Day is Keith, who is from Nebraska, once quit high school.

Ying/Yang

It’s 11:45 PM on Tuesday, July 3 and I’m just finishing up a long day as I write this post before I head to bed. Again, another good day, but different than the previous days-I’m calling this my Ying/Yang day.

The day started out with illumination and brightness (Yang) as we visited the ancient temple ruins of Ayutthaya, one of the former capitals of the Kingdom of Siam. I loved the huge statue of a reclining Buddha that was wrapped in a giant yellow cloth. We stopped and visited a practicing temple and I was blessed by a monk. He gave me a yellow cloth bracelet to wear, which I’m not to take off until it rots. When this occurs, I’m to make a wish. I have a wish in mind but may have to change it when my bracelet finally decays and falls off as it may be outdated.

The day ended with a fascinating visit to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club of Bangkok to listen to a panel discussion of the key players involved the upcoming Khmer Rouge Tribunal. The presentation was titled, “Justice Delayed, or Justice Denied?” It was really interesting to hear panelists give their insights to these upcoming war crimes tribunal on the Khmer Rouge era. I could have stayed their all night listening to them talk about the possible implications of the tribunal and how it might serve justice and/or enhance healing within Cambodia over the Khmer Rouge era. This represents the worst in humanity as Cambodia tries to heal itself over this very dark (Ying) period in its history.

Tomorrow, we have a meeting in the morning from 9-11 and then we have the rest of the day to ourselves. Everyone is really excited about having some free time tomorrow. I haven’t decided what I’m going to do, except run in the morning at Lumpini Park again. There is a street market I’m thinking about going to in the afternoon with some of my colleagues in the program.

I have decided that I’m going to include an interesting fact about one of my colleagues every day that I have a post on this blog. So, today’s “An American in Bangkok’s Interesting Fact of The Day” is…. Matt took a leave of absence from his school last year to hike the entire Appalachian Trail.

A scholarly day

Good morning! It is 5:45 am here in Bangkok-11 hours ahead of Atlanta time. I’ve been writing my posts late in the evening, after we get back to our hotel from the activities of the day, but last night I was too exhausted. So, here I am writing this in the morning of the following day.

We started out the day with a discussion/talk by Charlie Mehl, an American Sociologist living in Bangkok. He gave a great presentation on the role of the king in Thailand. It was yellow day yesterday as it is every Monday. A lot of people were wearing yellow to honor the king. The Thais have a different color for every day of the week-my favorite is Friday (blue).

Thailand has a constitutional monarchy in place with the current king very much admired by the people. They are so passionate about their king. He is also a deity! In fact, it is not accepted in society to talk bad about him in public. Charlie talked a lot about how this current king has redefined the role of the monarchy into a huge philanthropic endeavor and as a worker for the people.

We also visited the Thailand Stock Market yesterday. We had three men talk to us about the financial and economic outlook here in this country. All three men were educated in the U.S. (Cornell, Purdue, Temple)-which is interesting to note. We were presented a PowerPoint presentation that they presented to the economic board of Thailand last week. Currently, the economy is really low here because of the coup de'tat occurred last year. But, the men were predicting that consumer and investor confidence will pick up once elections are held this year and a new government is in place. Currently, the government is temporary and was put in place by the military after the non-violent coup that occurred last September.

A Muslim scholar also talked to us about the conflict (insurgency) in south Thailand. A group of people in the south region of Maya are very unhappy with the government as some violence has emerged over the last year. They are Muslims in a country that is officially 95% Buddhism and 7% Muslim of which 70% of these Muslims live in south Thailand. Although many people, including the media, want to portray this conflict as a religious conflict and even a Jihad by the Muslims, he maintains it is really about ethnicity and not religion. The mindset of the people here, according to him, is that everyone believes that Buddha was a Thai and Muhammad was a Malay, but in actuality, “Buddha was not a Thai, and Mohammed was not a Malay.” He was interesting to here and I will be curious to keep up on this conflict once we leave get back to Atlanta.

We had dinner at a really neat restaurant overlook the river. It was a great way to end the day as it was very peaceful and relaxed dinning along the river. We had traditional Thai food that was yum!

Today, we are making an excursion to the site of the former Kingdom of Ayutthaya, which is now a UNESCO World Heritage site. It is approximately 75 km from Bangkok and we are taking a private tour bus. I’m excited about tonight as we are attending a talk on the Khmer Rouge Tribunal called, “Justice Delayed, or Justice Denied?”

Searching for Karma!

It was a long, good day today.

I started out by going to Lumpini Park located in the center of Bangkok to run this morning. The park was a 7 minute taxi ride from the hotel. Since the program started at 10:00 I thought I would give myself plenty of time to get to the park, run, come back, shower, and of course get coffee without feeling rushed. So, I thought I was being clever to avoid the crowds (the Internet mentioned that it gets crowded early) by leaving my hotel at 5:00 am. Well, when I got there it was packed-at 5:10 am! One would have thought it was noon! There were sweaty runners, jumping aerobic classes, Tai Chi, sword fighting, and tons of walkers. I couldn't believe how many people were out there exercising that early in the morning. The street markets were even open and bustling! It was unbelievable! I really thought I was on a movie set-something like the Truman Show where everyone was acting around me.

There was a gigantic aerobics class, maybe 150 people, dancing to funny music that was being blasted from a stage with a 2007 Thai version of Richard Simmons leading the participants. It was really funny! Many different classes of Tai Chi were all over the place. A lot of senior citizens were participating in the Tai Chi. At about the 1 mile mark of my run I hooked up with a fellow runner who was Thai. He was probably around my age and we ran together for about 3 miles-step by step, next to each other without saying a word until until I asked him if he runs here often and he looked at me with confusion. Finally, through the strategically placed hand motions I was able to determine that he was running 4 miles. I almost tripped when I bowed back to him in full stride when he quit running.

The rest of the day was just as amusing as I met everyone at 10 with our first meeting of the program. We spent about 1.5 hours with personal introductions and going over the itinerary before we broke into groups of 4 and were assigned a university student tour guide. Our tour guides were "New" and her cousin "B." New convinced B to come along because she wasn't confident that she was familiar with the city. That got me a little nervous when she made that confession. But it turned out they were awesome tour guides. New is working on her Masters in SE Asian Studies and B is running the family business of supplying machine parts to factories that manufacture shoes, such as Nike and Ecco.

With New and B we embarked on a six hour scavenger hunt of Bangkok. It was a great way to see parts of the city that we would not have seen on our own. Each group was given a list of items to bring back at 6:30 pm when we reconvened at the hotel for dinner. Each item was worth any amount of points. The directions also sent each group to different areas of the city to experience various buildings, palaces, and places. Some of the items that we needed to bring back for point value were an amulet, a diet coke can with Thai writing, a group picture with a snake, a group picture with the king, a mango, a flower wreath used as an offering for Buddha, tiger balm, a picture of a family riding on a motorcycle, and a tuk tuk (a three wheeled taxi).

The whole excursion was really fun. My group included Chris from CA, Denise from Nebraska, and Phyllis from Scarsdale, NY. We worked well together in trampling through the city. My favorite part of the whole day was when I had to help this very old (85?) Buddhist Monk into the rest room at the Grand Palace. New said that I performed a merit and would receive good Karma for this deed. I'm all about the good Karma!

Today (it's actually 5:oo am here) is King's Day in Thailand. Everyone will be wearing yellow throughout the Kingdom to honor the King. I'm borrowing a shirt from my roommate Matt to wear as I did not bring anything yellow. The royal family in Thailand is very revered. In fact, it is a HUGE disrespectful act to talk bad about the royal family. Evidently, he is really involved in social issues and is viewed as an advocate for his people. Today, we will learn more about this as a scholar is joining us in the morning to talk about the role of the royal family in Thailand. In the afternoon we are visiting the Thailand Stock Market and discussing how globalization is affecting Thailand's economics.



It should be another good day!

Adult Ice Cream and Thai Massage

It is so humid here in Bangkok. I'm constantly drinking water in an attempt to stay ahead of the dehydration factor. Matt, my roommate for the program, walked to a store this morning to stock up on bottled water for our stay in Thailand. Initially, I thought we overstocked on water, but now think we did not get enough for our stay. On the way to getting water, within 10 minutes of leaving the hotel, we were asked if we wanted a "Thai Massage" by an individual on the street. I think his idea of a massage is different than mine.

I met up with several other members of our group (Marissa from Hawaii, Gwen from NY, and Kristen from Philadelphia) and we went to a 4th of July celebration at the American Emabassy. They were holding it today because the 4th falls mid-week and wanted to have it on the weekend. The big hit of the party was "Adult Ice Cream" that was fabulous. It is Ice Cream made with 5% alcohol. I had the "screaming orgasm" which contained Amaretto and Kaluha. I'm not sure if it is named "adult" ice cream because of the contents or the flavor names. It definitely was yum in the humid, 90 degree weather.

Well, the program officially starts tomorrow at 10:00 am, and I'm looking forward to meeting all the other participants and starting our itinerary.
I'm headed to sleep as I'm getting up early to go run in Lumpini Park, the "Central Park" of Bangkok.

Arrived!

Hello everyone~ I just arrived to my hotel in Bangkok after nearly 26 hours of travel. My flight went from Atlanta to Chicago to Tokyo to Bangkok. The flight went well-a lot of reading, watching two movies (Catch and Release and The Shooter) and more reading. I met up with my roommate for the program (Matt) in the Bangkok airport as his flight got in near the same time as mine. He was coming in from NY.

Bangok is very HOT! The cab we took from the airport was very clean-almost new. It cost us about 1000 Baight ($33 USA Dollars). We had to go through a metal detector in the hotel lobby, which is a first for me. The hotel is really nice! We are on the 15th floor. It is 2:00 am here (Saturday) and I'm not really tired, since I slept a lot during my flights.

The program starts on Sunday, so we have tomorrow to ourselves. I don't have any specific plans other to eat some good Thai food. I imagine we will run into many of the other educators in our program tomorrow throughout the day. I also will want to run-the heat is going to kill me!

Our family stay assignments were emailed to us late Wednesday evening and my family is located in the Ponhea Leu district, Kandal province, the village is named Tep Pranam. The mom and dad are 39 and they have two children 19 year old son and a 17 year old daughter. An uncle also lives with them who is 26. The dad is an asistant principal at the local school and the mom sells food. I will be staying with them from July 12-17.

I have Internet access in my room so I'm typing this blog and watching MTV Thailand-the videos are interesting, but I don't understand a word that is being spoken.

I'm sure I'll have more to say tomorrow. The website of my hotel is www.pprincess.com if you want to see what it looks like.

The journey of a thousand miles begins with five needles!

I have created this blog as a mechanism in which to bring my experiences of participating in the East-West Center's Travel and Teach: Thailand & Cambodia program back to my community (friends, family, and The Galloway School). I hope you enjoy your visit and please come back often to see what has been happening throughout my journey.

In preparing for this trip, I went for my fifth vaccination yesterday (Japanese Encephalitis) and my nurse is only 30 and already has 5 kids! She said she has one every two years-kids, not vaccinations. Then she poked me hard with the needle.

I put together a list of things I still need to purchase before my trip and things to pack. Luckily, the "to pack" list was longer than the "to purchase" list. I'm still trying to find boots to purchase for the rice patties. I also looked up Cambodian wildlife on the Internet and found out that some of the most venomous snakes are in Cambodia, but my source also mentions that most snakes there will not bother you if you stay away from them-no problem there!

I also surveyed the list of participants for the program and found that of the 20 participants only 4 are male. That presents a unique dynamic in terms of gender perspective. It should be interesting!