Here's Where I am Now

My twenty-page paper is due tomorrow. I’ve written most of it. And by that I mean everything but the conclusion and ending.

I have been avoiding it. Not because I am a procrastinator, but out of a fear of being finished, of being “through” with Cambodia, which emotionally I don’t think I ever will be. But I am struggling. I feel a heavy burden. It’s not a burden of having to carry anyone’s pain, it’s this weight of knowing that I have no obligation to hold on any longer, it’s a fear that I can so easily push away all of my experiences, push away all of these people’s lives who have touched me. I’ve been doing a lot of crying, praying, thinking about what these next years hold for me. Needless to say, Daddy and I have nearly irreconcilable ideas and plans for me. He looks out for me, my future while I am just so desperate to be with people who are raw, alive with humanity, who needs me in some way. Seeing children’s faces light up at three silly white girls teaching them the Hokey Pokey was one of the greatest moments of my life.

 

And here am I trying to write this paper about what justice looks like for a population surviving a genocide. There is no justice. The world needs another word for reconciliation after life traumatizing, nation and history affecting atrocities. Because justice—it doesn’t exist. If I had lost my entire family, nothing anyone said to me or gave me would make me feel that justice is served. Needless to say writing a paper, then about justice, has been more about teaching a population how to be a “bigger person”, which I fear is also just a load of crap, something I wish would happen to help me sleep better.

 Since being home, I recently read a book that had a very meaningful passage. I have since given the book to another friend to read, but the jist of it has helped me learn the value of forgiveness. In western cultures, we have this forgive and forget mentality when someone has done wrong against us. This book is speaking about sins done by one person to another, and how we just like to move on in the relationship and forget it ever happened. But we tend to skip the “forgive” part of it. Someone has to take the fall, accept the sin, accept the pain and the hurt of the wrong-doing in order for forgiveness to take place or else you just skip right along to the forget pattern, but we never really forget because often down the road the issue will resurface because forgiveness has not really taken place.

 I feel this is so applicable in Cambodia. Forgiveness is the only way out. It is the only way to stop the cycle of violence from repeating itself. And forgiveness hasn’t happened; in fact the entire population has silenced themselves. These people live in a culture where you don’t talk about anything bad. From the book you will read about in the next paragraph, the author, Somaly Mam, writes

“During the Khmer Rouge regime people detached themselves from any kind of human feeling, because feeling meant pain. They learned not to trust their neighbors, their friends, their family, their own children. To avoid getting mad, they shrank to the smallest part of a human, which is “me”. After the regime fell, they were silent, either because they had helped cause the suffering or because this is what they learned to do in order to survive.

            The Khmer Rouge eliminated everything that mattered to Cambodians. And after they fell, people no longer cared about anything except money. I suppose they want to give themselves some insurance in case of another catastrophe, even though the lesson of Pol Pot—if there is one—is that there is no insurance against catastrophe."

Great writing. Sad Truth to think about from the comforts of the air conditioning, right?

Those excerpts came from a book I just finished. It is the most heartbreaking book called The Road of Lost Innocence about an escaped sex slave in Cambodia who writes not only her gut-wrenching story, but also of the hundreds of girls who have similar lives as she. I’m regretful to say to all my male friends that this book has made me disdain men, especially because it is just about these endless stories of rape, and male empowerment through destroying the lives of little girls repeatedly. I understand that this is not a burden or an accusation I should place on most men, but it really is hard to help it when reading these stories. All the men in my life, especially those of you reading this, treat my girlfriends and me with the utmost respect, but I don’t think a single woman can read this and not have similar sentiments. The majority of men in Cambodia lose their virginity to prostitutes by the age of fifteen. One-in-eight Cambodian girls are sold into sex trafficking. And I just cannot even begin to describe the atrocities written about in this book. The entire country of Cambodia today is a story of men dominating and oppressing and ruining women. And here I am, reading this book, under my blue sky in my Orange County utopia in my pink polka dot bikini thinking, “Oh this is just terrible… Hmm, its hot, I think I’ll go for a swim…” And I just have so much difficulty even speaking about this to my parents, to my friends, to anyone. Not just this book, but also my whole experience because I just cannot do justice for everyone. And my comfortable, amazing, spoiled life is just becoming less and less comfortable emotionally.

In this last chapter, she writes that “there is one law for women: silence before rape and silence after,” (185). This is understood throughout the entire culture.  It’s a story of men with AIDS raping six-year old virgins thinking it will cure them. It’s a story of these same girls being stitched up in the brothels without anesthetics the same day and resold two days later as virgins again.  The author has created centers throughout Southeast Asia to recover these girls, over four thousand now.  But threats are made against her life daily because the majority of the top officials in all of these countries are bribed by the pimps and the police and the military who run these brothels. She writes, “Even if we do make a scandal, the political authorities can only try to force the judicial machine into action. Then things get blocked up and nothing happens. The results are rarely satisfactory. We have laws in Cambodia, but everyone ignores them. The law of money prevails. With money you can buy a judge, a policeman—whatever you want,” (173). This is not just true of sex slavery, this is true of the entire country’s corruption.

And four thousand saved girls is great, but what about the hundreds of thousands of girls who the organization doesn’t have enough money to save.

This entry is not supposed to be a guilt dump on your shoulders. But it’s a here is what I am thinking as I am trying to write about justice.

So I am thinking now is time to go write the paper again. If you want some light summer reading, aka my twenty pages, which are quite similar to this, let me know. I’ll be more than happy to email it along to you. 

We presented our entire trips this morning in our groups. It was amazing and definitely what I needed to start my own personal healing process. I have to write a lengthy research paper about transitional justice in Cambodia. I am excited for the challenge. 

I was reading the end of a book called Velvet Elvis just now and came across this quote which really shed positive light and put into words many of my thoughts after the trip.

"Ultimately our gift to the world around us is hope. Not blind hope that pretends everything is fine and refuses to acknowledge how things are. But the kind of hope that comes from staring pain and suffering right in the eyes and refusing to believe that this is all there is. It is what we all need-- hope that comes not from going around suffering but from going through it."

I'm okay!

We spent the weekend in Siem Reap doing touristy things. It was great. I am headed back to Los Angeles tomorrow.

I have found peace with all of this. I know I left on such an intense note. But Christina, Jessica and I went to a Christian bookstore on Thursday that they knew about through the missionary. Literally the first book that caught my eye and picked up was  called "The Good News About Injustice" and it's all about the Christian perspective of why all of this happens throughout the world. It has been helping a lot. And Jacqui (the roomie in Hong Kong) sent me the most encouraging, long, positive, reinforcement email and it was just such a good read and really renewed my faith in what I am doing here. And I just pray that somewhere down the line, God has me in his action plans for some (ANY) third world country, or making a difference in some soul-crushing plight that the world needs some form of answer to. 

I had a fantastic trip. Totally life changing in ways I don't know if I will be able to talk about for quite awhile, but just really too unreal. I kept having to remind myself that this was real: I was really in this amazing country doing this amazing thing meeting these amazing people, going to UN TRIALS, seeing all those world famous amazing temples. It was just too good to be true.

Thanks Mommy, Sid, and Daddy SO SO SO SO MUCH. For everything. For your constant support (and monetarily too), encouragement, and all the constant outpouring of your love. I cant wait to get home and actually speak to everyone! 

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I have been neglecting the blog, and I keep trying to say its because I am busy or because too much is happening to even try to fit into a post, but that would be a blatant lie. Then I've been contemplating just deleting the whole blog, but then I felt that it would be unfair to those of you who have actually been tracking me while I'm here. 

So I'm breathing underwater here, and let's just say I'm not a fish. In other words, I'm drowning. 

I came on here to tell you all of the more amazing things happening, example: I'm going on Voice of America radio in about fifteen minutes with a few other students. We are being interviewed for the Phnom Penh post in a few days, my picture was in the newspaper last week when I distributed books! I've been at the Duch trials, and I want so much to talk about it, but if you all thought I was all confused after interviewing Him Huy, that was nothing compared to what I feel after these trials. I just want so much to give Duch a hug, and tell him that God loves him, no matter what. Here, this man is on trial openly admitting to killing 15,000 people, he is more educated and keeps correcting the prosecution to implicate himself further, and only because he has already lost everything and played a role in destroying an entire nation. But he is not even in the top echelon in the regime, he just wrote a diary so he was able to implicate. They dont even have enough hard evidence to put the few top leaders who are still alive on trial, in fact some have diplomatic immunity. It just crushes my soul. And Duch, he is just so stoic and well mannered, and brave and wants so much to heal the country that he helped ruin. I'm just flabbergasted and floored.

And now I just feel so much that I am useless. I am here, doing nothing, really. I want to understand these trials, this genocide, heal these people. But I can't, most of them don't even want to talk. And why are we wasting so much money on this? They are talking to us because we ask to, but what are we doing with all of this? Publishing a few meaningless articles in newspapers, writing more books that wont be read? It's hard to find meaning in exposing someone's deepest pains when I have nothing to give them in return, to show them my gratitude for even speaking to us. 

And then it's like this genocide is in these people's past. The children who stand outside our car windows who are seven years old with babies around them. What do we do with them? What should my heart do for them? I can't give them money because it goes to pimps. THey dont have families to come home to at night. They dont get the money I want to give them, it lines someone else's pockets. And if I dont give them money then they get beaten for being useless, for not wrenching tourist's hearts enough. What can I do? What can any of us do? And it's not like you can follow them, its not like you can take the cops. This is a country where corruption rules everything. The cops turn a blind eye because they are paid by the pimps to disregard it. It cant be brought to trial because there is no justice system here to speak of, it too is overrun more than anything with corruption to the maximum. 

And when we walk down the riverfront streets at night, there are girls who are selling themselves, their bodies, and not even for their own gain, but for someone else's own monetary gain. They get beaten for not making enough money, for not being pretty enough, or seductive enough. 

These are their real problems. Now. And here I am for a class learning about "justice". I dont know what I am going to write in this twenty page paper because the word is meaningless. And justice and forgiveness doesn't feed parentless children, it doesnt root out pimping children and women, it doesnt slow the sex trade. Forgiveness is something we as outsiders want to help us sleep better at night.

I'm not sleeping well. My heart hurts more than it ever could for a boy. And my crying heart doesn't save humanity, it doesn't even help humanity.  And even if I could save Cambodia, this is one of hundreds of countries with similar problems. The problems here arent even as bad as other places. 

SO anyway. I am not writing any more. It feels dumb and pointless and heartless to write on here and entertain you all when really I just want to spend my time crying on curbs with children who I can't do anything for. 

I was almost inclined to say pray for me, but more than anything I would rather all your prayers, at least for this one night, go out to not only Cambodia, but to all the ills that plague civilization and humanity.

Thanks for reading, hope you all laughed in the past. Thanks for caring enough about me to read this for two weeks, it really does mean a lot to me. 

Ginger 0 Tiffany 1

Jessica didnt believe me that there are penguins in South Africa.

Read the title of the post to find out who was right. Not that it should surprise you because if it was the Super Ginger, I dont think I would post it. Then again, I am rarely wrong so if you want the real score, its probably Ginger + Rest of the World: 8. Tiffany: 10,000 to the nth degree of Right. 

Him Huy

 It is only 4:30 P.M. as I start writing this on Monday. It is weird that I will only be here one more week, as in I will be in Taipei at this time next week. Where did my adventure go?

 Two tattoos were inspired by this trip. Oh snap. Sorry to my parentals. However, I leave you with the somewhat comforting thought that me getting around to actually committing to scarring my skin forever is totally different than just saying I’m getting them (that is where I am now, after all, I cannot imagine a tattoo parlor here is in any way sanitary.)

 So today we woke up and went out to yet another province outside the city to interview Him Huy (did you do your homework?)

 In four hours, I drank 1.8 Liters of water, which is more than one is recommended to drink daily by whoever makes those rules. Well whoever made that limit had never ever been to Cambodia. I am still parched. TMI life example: I never have to pee here. The water pours out of my pores before it has a chance to wash my system. Maybe that’s why I got sick. I wanted to entitle one album of my pictures “Moist” because it is the word I use to describe everything about this country. Sweat stains.

Now I am back from dinner, I can write about why I’m actually here in Cambodia.

We interviewed Him Huy today. I have a lot to say, and I don’t think most people want to hear it mostly because it takes a very humane view of a very inhumane genocide. So it’s more serious, but feel free to keep reading further down. I will make it loud and clear when my IR sociology sputter is over.

We interviewed Him Huy today. He was so enlightening. His home is very modest and unassuming because he is just like any other Cambodian. He wants away from a genocide that he wanted nothing to do with.

His shortened story: He was conscripted at age 15 into the Khmer Rouge where he was initially a soldier, he got sick many times with malaria and was in and out of hospitals most of 1974. Then Comrade Hor bonded with him and didn’t make him go back to the front lines. He was part of the KR that came into Phnom Penh on April 17, 1975. He was part of this Division 703 that was taken into S-21 prison (the one I wrote about previously in the blog) where Hor was second in command to Duch. Everyone did what Duch said to do. Within the prison there was Duch’s Western Zone faction and Hor’s 

Division 703 faction. In 1977, Duch started cleansing the party from within at the prison and many of Duch’s fellow prison guard cadres were interrogated, tortured and killed. Him Huy recalled throughout the interview that he lived in constant realization that he was next, that he daily believed he was going to be killed by Duch. To this day, he says he only lived because the Vietnamese came in and won the war. If the Vietnamese had lost, Huy would still have been part of the Khmer Rouge and knows he would have been killed by Duch. Him Huy did plan a revolt that never happened because Hor “got quiet” which meant that it would not happen. Him Huy’s job at S-21 prison was a prison guard where he was responsible for bringing the new arrivals at the prison into the room where they were processed. He was also supposed to make sure at night that none of the other guards were sleeping. He recalls hearing lots of screaming from prisoners, but he could not talk to anyone, even the guards in other units. There was a lot of secrecy in the prison and division so that he only ate with his unit and interacted with only other guards. He had no contact with the torture/interrogation units and thus had only vague inclinations as to what has happening in the prison. He was also the person responsible for writing the name of each prisoner at Choeung Ek as they were taken from the holding room to the killing fields, so he wrote down each name and numbered each person as they were sent to their deaths.

The interview was two and a half hours, I have over ten pages of written notes from it, so I am not going to transcribe all that plus a lot of it would entail a factual  background of a conflict that I’m guessing none of my lovely avid readers have. And I mean I understand, I was in the same boat until the last couple months of reading books and then class and being here.

Here is where you can disagree with me:

Him Huy is a perpetrator by the plain and simple fact that he was in the Khmer Rouge, he was a guard, he was a head guard. He witnessed killings, he may have even partaken (even though he only recalls one specific time when he did kill someone.) But I don’t think he’s guilty. Of course we all have choices in life, and yes he had the choice to kill or not, but if one understands the culture of paranoia that encircled this entire regime, then he looks a lot more blameless, along with many of the other KR cadres. When Him Huy says he literally did not have a clue what was really happening in the prison, it is the truth. There were six men who literally ran the entire country and even a few of those top leaders were assassinated because Pol Pot was so paranoid. Duch ran S-21 prison, he was one of the six. Comrade Hor, who I spoke of earlier, was second in command at s-21. He was tortured and killed. When the top people are being killed, what are you supposed to do? Him Huy watched dozens of his unit be killed, he watched their families come in and be killed simply for being affiliated with a prisoner. Huy told us at the end that every day he wanted to put a bullet to his head but never did because his family would have been tortured and killed for his actions. Him Huy planned a revolt as he told us for a long time, the plan was intercepted by Duch’s faction. Many of the men involved with the plan were tortured and killed.

SO again, while Him Huy could have chosen not to partake, put yourself in his shoes. If he had chosen not to be a part of the Khmer Rouge (he frequently asked to be moved to the fornt lines because he understood that his life and his family’s life was in grave danger as long as he was guard, but he was always turned down), he would have been killed. And had he died, it is not that it would have prevented anyone else’s life from being taken. His death would have been entirely in vain, as all of the deaths were. He was unimportant to the Khmer Rouge, his life and death was of little consequence to the Khmer Rouge (a phrase which was actually told to everyone in the country. Your life is irrelevant and your death is of little consequence and forgotten).

I cannot hold Him Huy accountable for being human. I cant. I am sure he probably killed more than one person, but I mean its thirty years later. He has nine kids, why should he feel obligated to tell his own guilty conscience (if it is in fact guilty) to a bunch of white girls who are doing this for their own research—his guilt is between him and his God on his judgment day. I don’t think I have any room to sit here and say that I would have behaved any differently, and I don’t know that many of us have. While we would all like to say that we would have done something, the top of the regime went out of their way to literally make it impossible to disobey the party lines without being killed as a result. Not to mention, by the time KR fell in 1979, Him Huy was barely 22. He was my age. He thought he was going to be killed every day. Him Huy told us today that Duch kept offering to get him a wife, but he refused. Not because he didn’t want one. But because if he had a wife, that was one more person who could potentially be guilty. The more people you associate with, the more likely you are to be killed because of their alliances.  It was a culture of isolation for survival. Heroism in any way resulted not only in your own death, but in torture and the consequential torture of your family and then their deaths. Would you have gone against it?

 I think most people disagree with me, not because they think my logic is wrong, but it is difficult to fathom holding six people responsible for the death of 1.7 million people.

But these people are thirty THIRTY years removed from this conflict. 75% of their population is under the age of thirty. Meaning that only a quarter was even alive during this time. Justice cannot be had for this thirty years later. You cannot kill Him Huy because that is not going to make any one else feel better about what happened. It will instead anger his family, and anger the younger generations that are related to former KR people. It will make the young population resentful of international interference (AGAIN. That is what brought such an extreme group to power in the first place. This sounds like a GREAT IDEA.) at this stage, trying low ranking officials is useless. You cannot bring back the loved ones lost, but you can educate the young population to what happened. Have them talk to their parents, talk to former KR, let them tell their stories because they are victims too.

 At the end of the interview, we asked Him Huy what would bring him peace. His response was for all of us to just leave him alone, to stop asking him about it. People keep unburying this past, and no one has forgotten it but meaningless rhetoric, like this interview aren’t doing anything but angering and refreshing resentment.

If you are still with me, I am going to Duch’s UN trial for the next three days. You can imagine how I feel going into this….

Anyway, its hot as… a lot of inappropriate things I will refrain from saying. TMI example: i’ve been sleeping in a light, cotton “Swim with Mike” tank top. I went to the front desk an hour ago, got scissors and cut off the bottom half of the shirt. I am sleeping with essentially an elastic-less sports bra and I am still sweating my face off right now. Our room is set at sixteen celcius but the humidity just seeps in everywhere. Its brutal. Note to self, third world countries on the equator during the summer and the typhoon season is a bloody mistake.

 On a better note, Kru Kosal says there is a place in the North (the province I spoke of earlier in the elephant post) that is completely untouched by tourists and cars. Elephants take you EVERYWHERE. We cannot go this trip which as you can imagine is just the worst news ever. But I will be going to this province on my next trip for my elephant ride and to adopt my son.  I am fifty shades of excited for this.Bed time. We spoke a lot today about the general state of Cambodia today. It breaks my heart in a lot of ways. I hate and resent NGO’s more than I already did.

Hooray Lakers victory. I want this to be over in four games. But if it goes longer, then I can be home for game six and seven!!!! But I don’t think it will, and I would rather we just spanked Orlando and got it over with. 

Elephant Part 2

Dear Avid Readers/ Facebook users,

For all of you wondering about the sudden obsession with elephants, I am realizing that my trip is only one more week long and I am yet to see a country so I did all of the research (of course, right?) about elephants in Cambodia because I WANT ONE, at least a ride on one. And I want to blow into his trunk so he never forgets me. Ok, so there is one place in the capital where I can go ride an elephant, but its ten dollars! TEN. And im pressed for money so thats going to be a no. I thought about hopping my way across Southeast Asia to Malaysia because there are hotels there that escort you to your room via elephant, which sounds like a life venture I should have at my future homes. However, I think Malaysia may be more expensive than ten dollars, so again--I'm thinking thats a no. In addition, there are only 250-600 wild elephants left in Cambodia. THey are way up northwest. I will not be venturing there, so thats out the window. (Do you see how fast my hopes are being dashed????). Lastly, we are going to Siem Reap this weekend for the weekend to hike Angkor Wat. I think there are also elephant rides there. I will spend the rest of money and potentially sell my soul (not myself daddy, not prostitution, merely my soul) for an elephant ride before I leave. 

 Also, I am inspired to start a Sprinkles (the world's best cupcakes that are sold in LA) chain in Cambodia. Emily had the following brilliant idea: "OH. idea. you should 1. get an elephant 2. ride it around cambodia and 3. sell cupcakes from it! it'll be like the cambodian version of the hot dog vendors in LA. brilliant. i know. you're welcome. :)" I personally feel this is a brilliant idea and will take to it soon. Thoughts? I am thinking of starting a few surveys and petitions from this blog. A yes no survey of Emilys sprinkle idea. Followed by a petition to get Tom and Sue to get us a Cambodian boy. It would be the greatest. A third petition, which is imperative, LETS GET TIFFANY AN ELEPHANT. NOW. 

Thoughts everyone? Daddy?

I’m going to be really honest with you all: I went back with Lauren and Jessica and got another massage. Now that I told you all yesterday all the reasons this place is great for their country and for the masseuses, I can tell you physical observations which have nothing to do with them being blind, but just the general reality of shiatsu.

I wonder now if one should get a massage two days in a row. It was more painful today and it made my nose run so I kept having to wipe my nose which is quite yuck. Ok. Well they massaged my butt. That’s all I am going to say about that. I didn’t really think that I held tension in my butt because I think that would mean that it would have to have muscle. I think the only muscle in my butt is used to keep it perky. Other than that though, I think its just ghetto. Thanks Mom again for that. This woman had a double jointed left thumb which I figured out when she was massaging my feet. That was weird. Plus it felt really good which I hate to admit because I have a fear of feet that just runs so deep (PS random totally insensitive cultural remark but its not really exclusive to this country and I only say this because I just despite feet so much, but still: Cambodians have nasty feet. Tom’s shoes needs to come to Cambodia to cover their toes and feet for me before I return.) Also I think my entire body is going to be speckled with thumb print bruises. As Jessica said, I think there are gaping holes in my muscles now. Gaping. My hips cracked really, REALLY loud tonight. I think the whole room heard it. Oh and I almost cried: they put a towel on my feet for awhile, and then they flip you over onto your back so you are face up and then she was massaging my face with a towel on it and I’m pretty sure those were the same towels. I hope not but I know my feet were uncovered and then my face was covered. I am just saying. AND another important note. NEVER GET A MASSAGE WHEN YOU HAVE TO PEE. Of course I didn’t realize I had to pee until I was having my butt massaged. But I’m pretty sure I got a full kidney massage.

I THINK that is all I have to say about that. For now.

OK so this morning, I got up, Christina, bless her soul, found us a young, fun church. Although young is not hard to find here because 75% of the population is under the age of 30 here. But Christian is hard to do here since I mean it’s a 98% Buddhist country. But I guess that’s a challenge for missionaries. That’s exciting. So we went to New Life Fsomething. And it was just like Reality LA in Cambodia. And it was phenomenal. Except that a white guy was the pastor and he spoke in fluent in

Khmer. So we had to use little radios to listen to what a man from our own country was saying. That was quite strange since a Khmer man was doing the interpreting into a headphone set for all of us. It was all shades of funny looking back. Then Christina met up with Christians she knows and went to lunch. Jess Bear, Lauren and I went back to Friends today for lunch and we practically were licking our plates.

Then we swam for a long time. Quite a very long time. Then we went and got the massages. Then we went to dinner all eight of us minus Nas and Mer who always seem to be MIA at a place on the river. Go figure the one place we originally intended to eat had been relocated. SO that was useless as we walked up and down the SAME street SIX times, seven white girls and  a Sri Lankan. Yah, we looked all shades of ridiculous. Then Kiel was our ninth fall so she came but was sick, so Jess and I went home with her mid-meal, which was great since I was essentially unconscious on the table after the massage and just general exhaustion. And now I am lying on the floor singing musicals to Lauren and Jessica who think I am absolutely crazy but I’m not. Christina if you are reading this, then I love you and our Wicked singing festivals.

I just sang “What is this Feeling?” to Jessica. If you haven’t seen the musical, the answer is the feeling is unadulterated LOATHING. And that is for sure how I feel about my Ya-ya roomie.

Megyn if you are reading this, I’m now rocking out to South Pacific which they don’t get at all and they should cause we are so damn close to the South Pacific. This breaks my heart. Where is my Lieutenant Cable?

Tonight is a little shorter. Enjoy that.

I'm interviewing Him Huy tomorrow. I told yall to Wiki that. If you didnt then do your homework now. 

Ginger Last One Standing

Oh Right. Victim number Nine. And Kiel, our partial Ginger fell yesterday to violent illness and partial delirium.

Which means: my roomie, Jessica, the whole hearted Ginger is the last one standing!!!! and still shows no signs of falling. 

Day of Conquest

Well Saturday morning started off with a lovely dip in the pool with Christina. Savannah came over and told us that since our Twizzler, Alexis, was still a little freaked out we should do a big group thing. So we agreed to meet at one for a lovely lunch and then explore the Russian Market, which is the one must do market in Phnom Penh.

Then my Ya-Ya sisters (Lauren, Jess, Christina) and I had another great life talk/ bible study which was a great way to start and energize our day.

At one we all met to go to Friends Restaurant which is one of many philanthropic things you can do in Phnom Penh. Lonely Planet has this great list of places that offer services (like restaurants) that also serve a greater purpose. So Friends is a restaurant that takes children off the streets and gives them opportunities by schooling them in both Khmer and English, and reunites them with their families while also letting them work as servers in the restaurant. The kids are actua

lly about fifteen to twenty years old and they wear shirts that say “student” while the people who are ‘graduates’ of the program wear shirts that say “teacher”. What else is great about this restaurant? EVERYTHING. The Paintings on the walls are done by students. They guarantee that their vegeta

bles and fruits are bacteria free (in other words we can eat them) and that the water AND ICE is purified multiple times, so I got to have ice water for the first time in TEN DAYS. Which is something we all take for granted, but after this ridiculous heat and humidity, one really appreciates the goodness of frozen products that wont make one violently ill.

After lunch, we took another Tuk Tuk (the open air carts that are pulled by motorbikes- see picture)

to the Russian Market. –An aside on Tuk Tuks. I am pretty sure they are only a vehicle of choice for the tourists, which is why Alexis was a mega target. Really and truly, I have never seen a Cambodian in the physical cart part of a Tuk Tuk—. Ok So The Russian Market was like any other “open air” (a term I use very VERY generously) market in a third world country. As in it was full of knock offs everywhere and people are telling you how beautiful you are and how great their silk is. We saw North Face coats (I’m sure those are big sellers here on the equator), Puma shoes everywhere, Old Navy clothes, A&F, Lacoste, just all sorts of brands we spend big bucks for in the states. And of course, Daddy, I did some bargaining, but like any other market too, there is not much worth having. I bought a few dresses that are light and airy and perfect for LA but still too much for here (any and all clothing is too much to wear here. Nudity should be the outfit of choice). I also bought a bag for three dollars that is so durable and goes over the shoulders, which again after Alexis’s experience, is a necessity for tourists. I also bought a few silk scarves. Here I am drawn to orange. I now have TWO orange silk scarves from Cambodia and cant decide which one I love more.

After the Russian Market, we came back to the hotel and I was absolutely exhausted in all ways because Jess and I had stayed up until four am having the best life talks and Christina came bounding up the stairs before eight am full of her morning joy, so we were up for the day. Any way, my three Ya-Yas want out to dinner with an American missionary who has been in Cambodia for ten years. He is apparently fluent in Khmer and took them to the night market, showed them where children are bought and sold, and told them of all the complacency and down-troddenness (noun form in my world) of NGOs and missionaries here because of the pervasive sex slavery, among other soul-crushing things here that are just so hard to root out because of bureaucracy and the obsession with getting rich.

My night was a little more uplifting than that to say the least. Similar to Friends restaurant, there are massage places here that serve greater purposes than a great service. Niro (the Sri-Lankan beauty) and I went to get massages by BLIND PEOPLE. One can also get massages by acid burn victims (Aside: men here often leave their first wives for younger, more beautiful women who become either their second wives or girlfriends. As a way to keep their husbands from sleeping with the new gir

ls, the first wives pour acid on the faces of the young girls and burn them.)—like I said, there is a lot of heart break here. Anyway, so Niro had never had a massage and is from a very conservative culture, so we decided to go to the blind people to make her more comfortable.

We climbed in a little Tuk-Tuk who took us past Phnom Wat (which hopefully I will have more to say about after Jess and I venture there today). Then we turned down this street and there were MONKEYS. MOOOOONKEYS IN THE CAPITAL CITY. I was so excited, but didn’t have my camera with me, so I am a little forlorn about this. The monkeys were just climbing on the buildings and sitting in the road. It was fantastic.

So this massage. We walk in, we are led into this room where there are six massage beds. We are handed scrubs, we change in a make-shift dressing room. Then you lay down on your bed and get massaged by a blind person. The whole thing was amazing and quite the experience because they start by climbing on your bed. Did I mention that their massage style is half anma (body and spirit relaxation) and half SHIATSU. I have no more pain in my body anymore. It was beaten out of me in the most relaxing, beautiful way possible. I may go to the acid victims today for another one. It was the best. OH. And it only cost SIX DOLLARS FOR A FULL FREAKING HOUR OF MASSAGE. WHAT. It was just the greatest. I want to go back to the blind massage place (called Seeing Hands Massage) too because all of the blind massage therapists are old enough to have definitely been at least ten years old during the Khmer Rouge Regime. And it is not just that these people are blind, but they are faces are also contorted in ways that makes me want to know what their story is. So I am going to talk to Kru Kosal to see if there is a way that we can talk to at least one of these people, hopefully my masseuse named Mas. I just think they must have such an unreal story because Khmer Rouge went out of their way to kill anyone that was less than their idea of a perfect Khmer person.

I know that I will be leaving a piece of my heart and soul here. Jessica and I have already talked about plans to come back here. I am in love with a country.

ELEPHANT

I want an elephant. 

I saw monkeys tonight in the capital.

I've seen miracles here.

But all I want is an elephant.

Sorry I Disappeared

Jessica and I are like an old married couple on vacation. Why you may ask—its Friday at noon. We are in a tropical country. Its monsoon-ing. We swam all morning, both took showers. Now we are lying on our separate beds in bath robes sipping water and coke lights because that’s what one does on vacation. Now tell me that sounds like an old married couple to you too.

Ok so since Thursday night, I have been MIA and I wanted to say that not much tangible has happened, but I guess that is never true when I am writing.

Lauren was victim eight (but I swear its okay now cuz she’s siting on my hotel room floor singing and swearing at her computer and laughing and dancing in her own little world and I’m just reveling in her general glory and splendor). She was sick all Thursday night and ended up going to international SOS hospital because of dehydration Friday morning. When I saw her, she looked ghostly pale and just all together a hot mess. After IV, butt injection of anti-nausea medicine, and Tylenol, she was back at the hotel sleeping—a state of unconsciousness she was in for over fifteen hours.

Which means the two gingers are the last two standing of the ten of us. Although Kiel looked a little pasty, even for a ginger yesterday. Jessica walks out of her shower Friday morning and goes, “I don’t mean to sound insensitive, but gingers must be genetically superior.” I think Kiel is falling ill too, so maybe Jessica’s six month stint in Egypt prepared her for this. Niro (Niroshika), our “Sri Lankan beauty”, still claims she’s only a half victim since she seems to have contracted something different. We no longer believe any of us had food poisoning from the hotel because four of the girls got sick when we were on our two day trek. Really it must be a compilation of: the worlds most chaotic roads in an essentially air-less mini bus with nine other girls, exhaustion, exotic foods that are sometimes questionably prepared, jetlag, and maybe a bug— that have thrown us all for a loop. Even Kru Kosal was feeling a little under the weather upon our return to Phnom Penh Thursday. Poor guy. I think if I took ten girls to my home country and they were all puking their guts up, I too would be exhausted, overwhelmed, and need a break. Really. TEN GIRLS. Some of the girls only really have Europe under their belt in terms of travel experience, so had little clue what they were in for. Kru got h is break though, as he went to see his Papa last night and remained there for the duration of the evening. Which was semi-disastrous for us because…. Well just read on.

But first a random interjection—Now that I am better, I am willing to divulge the full extent of my illness (although I am still yet to eat more than a jar of baby food and bread. Literal baby steps). When we stayed at that sketchy hotel when I had the psychotic fever, well the next morning Jessica physically showered me because I was just so frazzled and weak in the morning. BUT like I said, I am fully restored in my energy and my life. Although because of so many things, I only get three hours of sleep last night (Friday night, its now Saturday). I awoke to the lovely amazing-ness of Christina this morning and all her love and glory over an email I sent her at three in the morning I think.

But lets back track. Why did we so desperately need Kosal last night?

Alexis got robbed.

And no matter how great and entertaining I think my recap of this trip are, I avoid writing about Alexis because words cannot do this girl justice. In the most loving way, she is the single person in my entire life that I genuinely believe is ADHD through and through. When she only takes one Adderal, instead of her prescribed two, oh my GOODNESS can you tell. She is just nuuuuuuuuuts. So her getting her entire purse robbed last night was just not a good thing. But she just has the best soul, so I have written up some of the things she said last night. Paint the scene: I am safety pinned into my mosquito netted bed, we thought all the girls had left our room for good, but Alexis had apparently just gone to the hotel bar for another glass of wine. And because its Alexis, that journey fifteen feet away took over an hour. So, here Jess and I are almost passed out, and Alexis comes trouncing back in to just keep spilling her heart for how sad she is that they didn’t just ask her for her bag, which she would have gladly handed over. She would have gladly given them all her clothes and her whole suitcase and worn her filthy same outfit home. She is that person on mega much-needed ADHD drugs. So hopefully this helps you understand our platinum blonde “twizzler, fruit loop” as she calls herself.

“They can have my F***ing ipod, and camera. And clothes and wallet. I don’t care. But they took the three most f***ing important things to me. THEY TOOK MY F***ING FACE SPRITZTER, MY HAND SANITIZER, AND FAN. They can have everything but they took my 98% Deet and I’ve just been so cautious about bugs and now the mosquitoes are going to eat me alive….”

“Keep your eyes out for leashes. I am attaching one to me and giving Kosal the other end. That way when I get kidnapped they get an extra little present.”

That is Alexis. She wears bright pink and yellow with bleached hair. And she learned her lesson. She is now wearing a scarf around her hair and logn sleeves to hide her pale skin. “I look like I have f***ing cancer. But at least I’m not a target anymore!!” She’s amazing. This girl gives a running commentary of her entire thoughts. There is absolutely zero filter. ZERO. She was telling us how a Cambodian boy was blushing but you cant tell because of his skin color, where as she is always red as an “apple”. Not tomato. And to Alexis, there is nothing wrong. Because she her judgments are not restrained from anyone and they are never meant in a harmful way, they are her mere observations of the world. She is indescribable.

What else happened yesterday? Kozy (he loves when I call him this) gave us the day off basically. Basically the entire weekend. So we swam most of the morning while Lauren tried to convince the hospital she didn’t have swine flu. Jessica, Kiel and I tried to teach our Sri Lankan beauty to swim. We are getting there.

I’m sorry I have no exciting pictures currently. I put them all on facebook. Although, honestly, I use Lauren’s amazing camera at all times. I wish you could merge facebook accounts so you could see pictures without me having to pirate hers. Or something. Friend her. She’s another version of me. Lauren Adele Dawson. MOM: Did I mention she’s ANOTHER TEXAN. AND SO IS MY ROOMMATE. THERE ARE THREE OF THEM ON THIS TRIP. I just cannot get away from Texas. It wants me. So much. Texas literally is stalking me.

Ok. So. I really think I hit the highlights that I am willing to divulge currently. I have my secrets over here too. Maybe just keep reading, maybe I’ll tell. I’m in Looooooooove. Keep reading. I’m so cryptic.

 Mommy, Daddy, maybe I’ll come home with a small Cambodian child. OK, kidding. LETS REALLY GET ONE and I don’t mean that to sound like a five year old wanting a puppy for Tiffmas. But. I told Christina this morning in the pool that really and truly I am going to end up with seven children, like Angelina. And Fin is going to be my Cambodian child. I think about him a lot now. He’s just the greatest.

OK. Going to the Russian market. Making a few investments. Maybe selling my liver or something. I think maybe if I remove my entrails that I may feel 100% better. Thoughts on this?

 Oh and I finally figured out my tattoo. Mommy and Daddy. I am not trying to give you heart attacks. But IF (KEY WORD. FOCUS ON THIS KEY WORD). I ever got a tattoo, I know finally what it would be. All these life discoveries. And it will be in Khmer. And it’ll just be the most beautiful cryptic secret. Love. Hope. Peace. AND PRAY FOR JUSTICE HERE. These people need hope so much.

 DO you get that their religion, that Buddhism, makes htem believe that EVERY SINGLE PERSON WHO DIED IN THEIR GENOCIDE DESERVED IT. They think that they did something in a past life to deserve that. How hopeless is that. How can you ever believe that 1.7 million people in your 7 million person population deserves death. DEATH. The ultimate price. Oh my heart cries so much here.

 My rant is over now. 

Some other asides after that journey:

- I seriously think I will be a vegetarian by the end of this experience. Chicken does not look like chicken here. I’m pretty sure they kill it out back when you order it.

·      I’ve seen way too many pigs too. And after eating pig ears, I don’t think pork and I will be bonding anytime soon. I’ll be looking into Islam after this. Then I can deny pork for religious reasons. Same with Hinduism and beef. Will it be wrong to say that I practice two major religions for dietary reasons? Perhaps scientology- aren’t they vegans?

- The rice is questionable too after journeying to the countryside. There are hundreds of cows and water buffaloes trouncing through the rice fields. I imagine they are relieving themselves out there too. I’m all about natural 

fertilizers and giving your animals free reign, but suddenly tofu is looking like the best (only) option. What is tofu, any way?

- All in all, not that there was questions in any mind, but I will not be going into the food production sector in my life. Although it would be the most effective diet program. Aka: anorexia and/ or bulimia.

- Also, I will not be eating fruits that I cannot peel myself. I haven’t been here because obviously that’s rule number one when in a third world country. However, strawberries are sheisty too.

- Third world countries have a very distinct (unpleasant) smell. It makes me nauseous. I better suck it up for the next eleven days. Note to self for the future: nose plugs, smelling salts.

- What about milk. I haven’t found any here. But im not sure if that’s a shady thing. Ive seen the cows here. They are scrawny and drinking mud water. I haven’t seen blue water since I got here. I hope that’s because its rainy season. 

Sick, Sick, Sick

Animals we have seen:

Pets: Ducks, cats, dogs, doves, roosters,

Wild: Water Buffalo- SO MANY. Secretly I wish they were elephants.

Tiff-ism: “If we see elephants, you better restrain me.” I want two elephants. My Asian one (that I will be getting in Cambodia, along with children) is named Edgar. My African elephant is named Po.

Other useful Khmer: Chang ban tuok don’: I like coconut water.

Tuok: water. Don’: coconut.

So I’ve come to this realization lately that I am cursed with something called instant karma. Here is the most prime example. The last blog was me saying Oh silly Daddy, I am so careful! Well. Let me tell you. I am victim number three to fall ill. Christina fell ill a few hours later. The only common thread between all four of us is having eaten hotel food the night before. None of us have had the same meal, and other people have eaten there and not gotten sick. So I woke up today like well I’m not feeling fantastic, but today is going to be the most useful for the project and research we are doing. WELL. Let me tell you.

We get to DC-Cam to find out that Him Huy does not want to speak to our group til almost noon, and he lives two hours away. So we go to Tuol Sleng prison instead. During the car ride, I start feeling absolutely lousy because the humidity is out of control on this particular day. Now I will digress from my sickness to write about S-21/ Tuol Sleng.

Tuol Sleng is a former high school that was converted into the biggest prison during the Khmer Rouge regime. Fourteen t

housand people died here. Only seven survived. SEVEN. CHoeung Ek was the killing site where these prisoners were taken. Look at that child’s face. WHAT could he possibly have been guilty of? 

The KR at S-21 carefully documented each person to enter. Each prisoner was tortured so gruesomely, water-boarded, electrocuted, forced to

eat feces, suffocated with a plastic bag. Then forced to write a confession divulging names of people they associated with, who were in turn brought to this prison This system was a wildfire of names that were carefully documented. At DC-Cam, we have seen this forced confessions that are complete with thumb prints of the prisoners. Then the names the prisoner gave were made into a list. Next to each of the names it would say “already under KR control” “deceased” “needs to be found, etc”. EACH NAME. This is the most documented, blatantly intentional, paranoia-induced genocide. 

At S-21, the entire high school is now a memorial where you can walk each of the floors, see the former torture rooms, see the shackles. Then there are rooms upon rooms upon rooms of pictures of the faces who came into S-21. THose who lived through the torture were taken to Choeung Ek blindfolded, where they dug their own graves and were executed. Have I mentioned that the US supported this regime as a way of opposing the Vietnamese? JIMMY CARTER knew all of this was happening, and still gave this regime billions of dollars. This group of people that committed a genocide against their own people.

So throughout this walk, I feel wretched. I make more than a few journeys to the bathroom because I am emptying my guts out. Then Kru Kosal (Professor Kosal) hears from one of the girls about my condition, so his brother drove me home to the hotel, bless his soul. Apparently during all this madness, Him Huy has decided to cancel his interview with us. So this is frustrating, but my guilt went away about being sick at that point.

So then Kru decides that we are going to go to the Vietnam border to interview people. That’s where I am writing this from on Word Doc because there is no internet in this sketchy place. Well at noon, it started monsooning like total madness. It is how I remember the monsoons in Japan. If it had been Ohio, there would have been mega tornado sirens. It never rains like this in California. This mega storm wakes me up from the sleep I had briefly fallen into.

Then I hear that around two we are going to leave and I say that I am not going. By this time Christina had fallen ill too. We spent a good hour and a half on the beds in her and Laurens room taking turns praying to the porcelain god in their bathroom. But through all of this, I am “chipper” (a suggested nickname for me here) and am feeling fine with the exception of this stomach that is kicking my ass. So, I finally decide what other chance am I going to have to go to Vietnam border. Professor was so excited to hear I was coming that he was jumping up and down. It was adorable. He swore the highway was one of the best in Cambodia (in comparison to what I now wonder) and that it was less than two hours. All lies. We finally left at 3:30. It is now 8:30 p.m. We’ve maybe been at this hotel half an hour. Although, I think the word “hotel” is extremely generous. Fact: whatever illness I have is not being helped by this place.

So what elapsed in those five hours. I don’t think I can begin to tell you except for being in excruciating amounts of pain. Lauren, bless her soul, gave me a massage most of the way because it helped get my mind off the deathly illness I felt. Real descriptive example: I was cold today in the car. COLD. I have yet to be cold in the last five days. There was no reason to be cold except for the crazy fever I was burning.

So somewhere in this car ride, once we got off the unpaved road we were on for forty minutes(so much for great shape), we got on a ferry. All of us had to pee desperately, but when we got to the bathroom on the boat it was the most revolting bathroom I have ever seen. Literally top five worst. And of course everyone else on the ferry is just laughing at the  “Barang” white girls shrieking. Literally it was a sink with a hole just as high. The sink was filled with all of the peoples secretions that did not quite make it the hole. I was the first to make the journey before I ran away screaming. Alexis didn’t believe me until she looked for herself. We put on quite the show. SO an hour and a half after this ferry ride, one girl decides she can no longer hold it. We pull over in a shanty town, use the bathroom in the back of this house. But first we have to go slip and sliding through the mud  because it had poured all day. I ruined my rainbows. They are crusty and black. They were hemp and cream. They are the only shoes I brought on this journey. Oops.

I have no words for that bathroom. It was not as bad as the ferry, but put it this way: four girls opted to use nature instead, next to a pig sty. Literally.

After that, it was only another forty minutes to this “hotel” in this “city”. The ceilings are beautiful, but I am pretty sure this is one of the more disgusting places I have been in my recent life. I don’t think this would make the triple A book in the states. Motel 6 looks like a Ritz comparatively. But I am sick enough that any place to lay down is great. We are all spraying the beds  with 100 Deet. I think my face may be peeling off in the morning. I also think this will exacerbate my illness. But it beats malaria I guess. Also, the blankets… What blankets? That’s right, folks. A bottom sheet. No top sheet. Some tiny little blanket folded on the edge of the bed. This blanket is foul. I’m pretty sure I’ve contracted HIV of the foot today.

All in all, staying at the hotel would have been a wiser choice. But I just had to have the FULL Cambodian experience. I’ve experienced more today than words can describe. No American hotel will ever be unworthy after this. Daddy, you may take note of this.

NEW DISCOVERY: After being sick again in this bathroom, I washed my hands obviously. WELL, there are no pipes connected to the sink. The whole bathroom is the shower, much like a cruise ship (although this bathroom is tip top disgusting). Thus the sink just runs down the tile into the drain on the floor. Who needs pipes anyways? If this was not enough, Jessica went to leave for dinner about fifteen minutes ago, turned on our bedroom lights to find that they burned out. So we have the disgusting bathroom’s light to guide us. Jealous? I’m sure you all are as you read this from the comforts of your air-conditioned homes with running, drinkable water. Pray for me. For my health to return.

So its been 24 hours since I wrote that last post. And lets just say, if I had known how things were going to go for me, I would never have gotten in that bus for the “must do, must see” 30 hour adventure.

After I closed the computer last night, I was absolutely freezing. FREEZING. In Cambodia. I had the fan on, not the AC. It was 29 celcius in the room (mid eighties in Fahrenheit) with mad humidity. I was under two covers and my towel and shivering. Needless to say I was killing one heck of a fever. Jessica got back from dinner about 11. I re awoke about 1 am, and was sick until about 6:30 this morning. I am dehydrated and a psychotic mess. I made it all day without being sick, but that was a miracle. Really and truly. I fell asleep in the van today at some point, had a FANTASTIC dream about vegas. Woke up sweating and nauseous still in the parked van. That was phenomenal.

Seven of ten of us have now gotten sick. Go figure I am one of two people who seem to have gotten the bug that lasts more than 24 hours. I am curled up in a ball on my bed back in Phnom Penh writing this. 

The survivor we interviewed today was just heart breaking. My only regret is that I was in too much physical pain to fully engulf his heart ache. He lost all four children to the Khmer Rouge. 

Four kids, four years. All died.

The gathering center of this town was also the site of a mass grave, as you can see in the picture. Like i’ve said before, the country is just speckled with these reminders that a genocide was in their recent past.

We saw the Vietnam border. It's basically a bunch of casinos that were imitating Vegas casinos, including one that looked like the Bellagio but was instead called “Vegas”. 

The drive home was quite uneventful. Mostly just a bunch of exhausted girls. 

Nastasia (pronounced Gnaw-staw-see-awww) and I are going to be eating baby food until our stomachs recoop. Jealous? I though so. 

Best Day

So I am trying to get entirely caught up before today (Tuesday) because tonight we are going to sleep near the Thai border and I’m obviously not bringing my computer but today is probably going to be one of the most intense days of my recent life, and maybe a very defining one too. In other words, I’d like to knock out yesterday so that when I get back tomorrow, I wont be three days behind.

 Well first, I am SO happy Daddy that you are following me and your emails are just adorable, and I am being smart about the food. I didn’t eat the seven hour un-refrigerated chicken yesterday when we finally got food. I just had rice even though we were all hungry. So I am using my judgment. And last night some of the girls went out with our professor to go drink snake’s blood, but I did not (mostly because I was exhausted, but I heeded your warning any way.)

So yesterday we left at 7 am, went to DC-Cam, got in the van and made a two hour trek to a northern province. We finally turned down this dirt road that was lined with shacks on stilts. We turned into the town’s gathering area before breaking up into our groups. One of the girls was really sick, so Jessica went with another group so all groups would have three people (normally our group is four). So Lauren, Christina, Kyeang (our interpreter) and I set off down the dirt road to meet a PERPETRATOR. We turned down a road where a whole bunch of men at this house were playing cards and Kyeang called out to the guy. The man who responded said who we were after no longer lived there, but they were all quite tipsy from the tree sap of the palm trees. So after a few minutes of confusion, the man who told us our perpetrator no longer lived there turned out to be the perpetrator. He changed his name. Nice and confusing right. He took us to the back of his home where we spoke to him for over an hour. It was not as difficult as anticipated to interview and speak with him; in fact he was quite willing to talk to us. His parents starved to death while he was working for the Khmer Rouge, so justice for him and so many like him is just impossible. He joined the Khmer Rouge because he was so mad at Americans for dropping the bombs. Then his parents died and in 1979 (after the fall of the KR), he joined the Vietnamese forces to fight the KR. During the KR, he was a soldier on the Vietnam border before being moved to Tuol Sleng prison. He says he only recalls one memorable death he witnessed: a white person being burned alive.

That’s all I have to say about him right now because yesterday was probably one of the greatest days I can remember, and interviewing was not the highlight.

After the interview, we went back to the town meeting area because we were waiting for our other groups. Little did we know that chaos was ensuing on their parts. So these ten village children came walking in to play in the pagoda and around the area. Christina first was trying to play with them then Lauren and I joined. Made fools of ourselves. And before we knew it word had spread about the white girls, and easily forty to fifty people were there watching us entertain children for the next hour and a half of our lives. We taught the kids the hokey pokey, London bridge, Macarena, Head shoulders knees and toes, ring around the rosey, and the “American hello fist bump”. The adults were having a ball just laughing away at us. It was more amazing than words can say. Kyeang then beckoned us away to go find someone else because the other people were going to be awhile. So I gave my little boys (three in particular were just the biggest flirts and I want to bring them back with me) my giant water bottle. I figured at the time we would be meeting up with people within an hour. I was wrong.

So walking down the trail one of the little boys followed us so I ran back to him scooped him up and tickled him for awhile. He is just tooooooo cute. The children here are adorable. I will be adopting a little boy from here. That is fact.

Well its monsoon season. So the downpour started and Kyeang made us turn down a random dirt driveway and seek shelter. We just happened to turn down a driveway of a Cham Muslim family. The great grandmother was 70 and had survived the Khmer Rouge. She was willing to talk to us. Mind you, she lives less than half a mile from a perpetrator. This is quite common in Cambodia where victims and perpetrators live in the same towns. We spoke to her, her son, her daughter in law, and her granddaughter. This interview also went quite well and was just such a sad story. She lost her husband to the Lon Nol Regime (the one the US propped up) and still to this day has no idea what happened to him. She is seventy years old, which is ancient for Cambodians. Throughout the whole interview, there were two tiny kids playing eyes with us. The little girl was just precious while the boy was entirely stand off-ish. I of course had a huge crush on him but he wanted nothing to do with me. The son of the woman, he is probably 50, went and climbed a coconut tree and brought us all coconuts the size of our skulls. Literally. These are not Hawaiian traditional coconuts. These are huge. Enormous. And this is quite normal in Cambodia, the people are so giving. They are beyond poor, yet they give each one of us a giant coconut. 

So then the SUV showed up with one of the groups. They had the food. We sat in the back of the SUV and ate, but then we heard that the group that had our bus was at least 45 minutes away still. So we headed back to the family where they welcomed us and gave us still more coconut. Then we began playing with the little girl. I was swinging her in the hammock. After awhile, the boy (in the picture) decided I was harmless enough. He tried to flip the hammock and I scooped him up. This was the beginning of our love affair. His name is Rafin, Fin for short. To me, he is little monkey (Con sva). I taught him how to use Lauren's camera while he was sitting on his dad's motorbike. Probably the cutest photo shoot ever. We had a ball together all afternoon.

His story is quite sad. He is an orphan. His mom died when he was one year old. His dad abandoned him to marry another woman. A French (white person, maybe not french) doctor came to adopt him but he refused to go because kids here are very afraid of white people because they have never seen the light skin. The little boy thus wouldn't talk to us at first because he thought we had come to take him away. When we assured him that we were harmless and he finally believed it, Fin was more than happy to be a little flirt for the rest of the day. He was just so precious. I would have adopted him if I could have. Not that you can tell in this picture, but he is missing his front four teeth and just has the most precious, beautiful smile. 

Kyeang finally told us we had to leave, and after a long, sad goodbye, we began trekking down the dirt road again towards our bus. We walked by the town area we had been earlier and the kids were still there playing London Bridge which just warmed my heart. The little guy who I loved in the early morning ran over for another American Hello fist pound. He was just such a cheeser. 

After getting back in the van and hearing about the crazy adventures of the other group (they had to go trekking through rice fields and walk a few miles with a hundred year old man who drank bunches of their colas), we headed to a high school an hour away to distribute text books. This was the strangest experience. DC-Cam has made textbooks about the KR Regime because kids here are not taught about it. Literally there was nothing in high school text books about it until 2000. The passage was 2 lines. So we got there and everyone got quiet because out of nowhere here come ten Americans. They applauded for us; quite strange. When we had sat down, boys and girls alike were taking pictures of us on their cell phones. This was the second time that day that Christina joked about feeling like a zoo animal in an enclosure.  Anyway, we helped to distribute these text books,

but only 30 kids a grade got them. It is so strange to see that. These kids were fighting over the textbooks. 

After, we stayed and talked to these high school kids who had so many questions about us, America, why we were here. It was such a funny situation. They loved practicing their English and laughing at our Khmer.  One boy told me I was very beautiful and asked me if I had a sweetheart or husband. I lied. THen told him Lauren was very single. It was just too funny. They wanted to know about skyscrapers and snow. 

All in all, a great day that I have no more time to write about. I didn't do it justice. But it was just amazing. 

Useful Khmer I learned yesterday: Love, Two Little Monkeys, Thank You, Goodbye, dance, what is your name, my name is. 

SO I am a day behind.
Yesterday, we worked at DC-Cam in the morning. I am so exhausted from today (we were out in a province for twelve hours. NO JOKE). I am writing about Monday, today was Tuesday. Anyway, so DC-Cam, we got to look at, read, take notes on, photograph all original documents that the Khmer Rouge had left behind. There is a lot of their papers etc left behind because the Vietnamese marched to Phnom Penh and took over within two weeks in 1979 because the KR (Khmer Rouge) was so weak at that point. So, we had access to this that most people never see. That was amazing.
Then we had lunch. Exciting I know. If you must know, I had a delicious strawberry smoothie and then I thought “Oh crap. Daddy said no ice. No fruit I cant peel.” So I defied him twice with one beverage. AND lived to tell the tale. BUT two girls have fallen victim to illness. And by illness I mean twenty four hours of repulsive barfing. I am yet to fall prey to this, but I am freaked out.
In the afternoon, we went to Choeung Ek which I am going to try to muster up the strength to write about but I don’t know if I had all of the most heart-breaking words in the world if I could even begin to do justice to this place and the Khmer people.
Pol Pot had a prison called S-21/ Tuol Sleng (which I will be visiting tomorrow. Take note of this place because it is a recurring theme of my whole trip.) At s-21/ Tuol Sleng, they kidnapped, tortured 14,000 political prisoners, men, women, children of all ages (more on this to come after tomorrow). These 14,000 people were then taken fifteen kilometers outside of Phnom Penh to Choeung Ek, which is the largest killing site in Cambodia. The first thing one notices upon arrival is a giant glass tower thirteen stories high. The entire thing is filled with skulls of the victims killed. There are 88 other towers like this scattered across the country, 129 killing sites, and over 20,000 mass graves. It is unreal and heart-wrenching.
We then went on a tour around the mass graves which nothing could have prepared me for. The man showing us around kept picking up teeth and bones that are just in the dirt. The whole area is giant holes in the ground that have been excavated. By excavated I mean they took out the majority of large bones like skull, spine, arms, legs. There are bones everywhere. If that is not heartbreaking enough, there is cloth all over the place. It is the peoples clothing (see image for graphic example). Most of them were executed with clothes on after digging their own graves. The clothes are literally everywhere sticking up in the dirt because the rain uncovers more of them each time it comes.

There are also signs everywhere that read something like: this is where speakers were hung because the KR played super loud music to drown out the sounds of the people being executed so that the other truck loads of blind-folded people would not know what was happening. Another one read: "Killing tree against which executioners beat children". THis tree had tiny bones all around the ground. Another said: "mass grave for victims without heads". Then near some enormous mass graves it said things like: 466 prisoners were killed here. 

And with that, I am mostly out of energy to write. Even though today (the 12 hour in province day) was AMAZING. phenomenal. great. i have about 30 children i plan on bringing  back now from this province alone. 

I need to bullet point the other things that don’t need full sentences but are still freaking cool.
- the museum curator at Choeung Ek is working with DC-Cam. She heard we were interviewing perpetrators. Wants us to put together documentary to be shown there. VERY BIG DEAL.
- newspaper reporter heard about us. Wants to write story for Phnom Penh Post. BIG DEAL.

Sunday, May 31st: A Day on the Mekong River

Yesterday, (Sunday) we went out on the Mekong River, which is one of two rivers that runs through Phnom Penh. For a pictorial description, look at my album on facebook. Anyway, so first we stopped on an island where they make silk. Women of all ages sit under these stilt houses and work on

 the looms; they are each only paid two dollars a day. The silk is beautiful, unreal. I bought several (this is me, several is literal) pieces from scarves, purses, table cloths: all totaling $28. Of course, the Tom Handley in me was thrilled to get such a great deal, it broke my heart that for all their hard work, their manual labor, they get TWO DOLLARS. And that is double the international poverty line. Unreal.

That was just the beginning of the paradoxal hours spent on the island. We walked to their STUNNING pagodas that easily cost of hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of dollars. All the while, we were being mobbed by the most adorable, sweet, gorgeous kids I’d ever seen who were barely clothed. At first, they were all following us just begging for money, but slowly they warmed up to us and began playing with us, with our cameras. One guy who was about our age asked our professor if he could take a picture with our “Sri Lankan beauty” of the group. He groped her hind end, quite entertaining; we are pretty sure it made his life. She was horrified. The children were adorable. The crazy girl in our group, Alexis—more on her to come—adopted a boy named Saleem who is 12. She still insists she’s never going to get married but will instead come back to bring him to college. Lauren taught the 5 year olds how to “pound” fists, that we caught on film because it was too cute. Savannah was teaching the kids to count. The little boys were fascinated by my toe rings and kept trying to remove them, while asking the professor what their purpose was.  I could write about these children all day, but I am already behind on this blog, and each day brings so much that I am kicking myself for all I am missing.

At lunch, we had a traditional Khmer lunch (not with faces this time). We had several exotic FANTASTIC fruits including: lychee (personal favorite), full coconuts, mangosteen, lotus (weird), and five others that were probably just as delicious, but not as memorable I guess.

The rampant poverty everywhere just breaks my heart into a million indescribable pieces. Again, look at the album because words will not do justice to this.

For my own memory purpose, upon return, five of us went to a restaurant where we had smoothies, then took naps, then went out for Indian which 

was a long adventure, despite being down the street from the hotel. That was a great run on sentence.

All in all, this was a great day to begin our trip because had we just gone straight to the field, I think we all would have been emotionally drained and exhausted from the start and missed the true beauty of the people here. They have such big hearts and so much love, but their scars are deep. They do not, in any way, wear their hearts on their sleeves; they just wear love and compassion. It’s beautiful. They love and appreciate life and have reason to be glad because these days  are truly better than ones in their recent past.