Never Eat Eggs at a Cambodian Truck Stop...

"Never eat eggs at a Cambodian truck stop"

Yes, when you say it out loud like that, it sounds like an Ahh-Duh moment...but I ask you to consider the context...

When you are tired of eating rice and fish for BREAKFAST! And you do not want to order any meat because your roommate has been in the bathroom for four days (I think we have him patched up for the most part), then yes...when presented the opportunity have some plain, fully cooked, eggs on a roll for breakfast before your 5hr drive, you TAKE THE EGGS. (as Spence and I did)

Fast forward 7 hrs, Spence is in bed doubled over in pain and I (having a more delayed reaction) is walking around a market shopping with the crew and thinking all is normal. That is up until I thought my insides were going to rip themselves out of me like that worm thing from the Alien movies.

The hotel could not have been farther away (2 blocks). At three occasions I did not think I would make it. Luckily the hotel has a bathroom in the lobby...partial relief. Then Spence was so out of it that he did not open the door as I banged on it saying "for the love of mike, I BEG OF YOU, open the door", I had to plead my case to the front desk, squirming squeamishly in place hoping for an extra key...

So the three of us spent the rest of the evening in the room...reading our newly purchased historical accounts of the horrific events of the Khmer Rough/Pol Pot era and journal writing. Tomorrow we leave early to see the sunrise over Angkor Wat, hopefully we are all in better condition...either way, our backpacks will have TP in them.

Relaxation without rejuvenation...

So we are leaving our seaside guesthouse and heading back to Phenom Phen (4hrs) and then north to Siem Reap (6hrs). It was a good two days. Yesterday we went SCUBA diving (2 dives) around the coral reef. Today I just found exactly an hour to get a full body massage, you just lay down on the beach...I am beyond relaxed right now, at one point I had 2 ladies working on me. I think they usually charge $4 for the hour but they are friends of ours so I gave them $15. At one point another woman came over and started sanding down the calluses on my feet. I can see just sitting there for half a day or so, especially after SCUBA but there is no time, so I am thankful for my hour. Now we are off to the real world, and honestly it is draining to be around such poverty, suffering and pain. To eat at a family restaurant and see that their beds are an elevated set of planks covered with a woven mat in front of the bar... or a fancy hotel that has shacks with barely a tarp for a roof as a multi family home just a few meters away...

A toast (or 20) to an amazing group

After 4 days of non-stop work, we had an evening to throw our feet up. "OHHH YEEAAAA"

We went to an open air "restaurant". Each table had its own little hibachi on it and they brought...wait for it...vegetables, some bread, margarine, water, slices of meat (notice I didn't say beef), whole squids, fresh shrimp (legs, eyes and antennae), more meat, and various "fiery death sauces", and a few pitchers of Ankgor beer. No rice for Pawv?!?, we are not sure she will survive. Let the relaxation begin.

We are all starving, so we "throw a few shrimp on the Barbi" and I grab the chop sticks and we start cooking like there is no tomorrow. All three grills are filled to the brim with various meats, vegetables and seafood. Everything is delicious and half the food is gone almost instantly. "save Jay the tentacles"

So who would come by the table, but a snake-on-a-stick saleswomen, cooked of course...and Ree-ann says "you want snake", everyone at the table says no...I say YES! Picture taking ensues and once I figured out how exactly to eat a red snake-on-a-stick, I dug in.

Kinda like eating chicken wings with a lot less meat...and the eggs (you can't buy snake-on-a-stick without the eggs, duh!) are a little like chic peas. I immediately offer eggs and snake to Spence and Jay..."eat this".

"take vengeance upon them, eat one of their kind"

As we eat up the food, we are brought more plates to refill our stores of bread and exotic meats. That calls for a toast. "OOOOOHHHH YYYEEAAAAAA"

Having cooked and eaten everything, we pay our $5.00 each, give a little food and some dollars to a few children wondering around the tables, and we load into our Tuk Tuk and off we go.

It was a phenomenally good time. "TRUE"

A night much needed and well earned. "cheers to us all being different"

:)

(and +2 points for everyone resiting the urge to buy from the table side porn video salesmen)

Lead by example

new Cambodian friend: "we must respect the countries that we [associate] with, we celebrate their holidays so that we may show their people the proper respect"

my answer: "I think some more people from my country should respect other cultures as you do"

The Killing Fields

The place where the people were brought to be executed after they had been "interrogated" at the converted High School I wrote about earlier... "all of you into the truck, its ok, no more hitting, you are going back to go work in the field". The killing fields.

Service to your country?!? Children, teenagers, taught how to kill in cold, horrific, violent, blood...they were taught a "new" method of killing so gruesome that words can not capture the act. They were made to kill not only their countrymen but their parents, family and neighbors...trained to be completely obedient to any command. As I started reading and even now as I type this, tears come to my eyes...how can you teach a child to kill.

Their lives will never be the same. I say out laud "how can you teach a child to kill"? It is a death of innocence that will scream through many generations, echoing through the hearts of the people, saddening them, depressing the spirits of sons and daughters. "how can you teach a child to kill", I say again. Taking an iron axle to the base of someones head, as they kneel blindfolded, and then cut the throat of there motionless body, or just cover them in chemicals (to mask the smell and bury them alive.

I drifted off away from the group, wanting time alone, I walk a long trail around the back of the compound...returning to the center to pay my respects to the 4 stories of piled skulls encased in glass and housed in a temple like tower...

Students trying to make a difference...

We went to the Cambodian Institute of Technology for a meeting with all their departments of engineering, of which apparently there are many. It was a thrilling scene, two long tables facing each other, one row of American students and one row of Cambodian students and department chairs...

At one point during the presentation the Cambodian student explained their plight, their funding was running out and they sought collaboration to enable them to continue there work...fixing wells in rural villages, teaching proper water sanitation, testing water supplies, improving the health of and increasing the standard of living within rural communities. Wow, sounds oddly familiar...we said we would love to collaborate...at which point smiles light up the Cambodian students faces. The room burst with a flurry of questions from the Americans table, asking every question imaginable. Seeking answers to answers to be able to answer one question..."what can we do to help these students build, grow and develop a stronger country", it was an interrogation of the highest ideals. (interspersed with an occasional confused stare when the language barrier showed itself.

We followed the meeting up with and extensive tour of the university, our engineering students in all their glory, bouncing from lab to lab, talking with professors and surveying the extensive equipment used to educate the young future of Cambodia.

Pain and saddness are not of the past...

we went to the genocide museum yesterday and saw the horrible things that occurred under the regime of Pol Pot...

We walked around a high school that was converted into a "prison" which in this sense means place to torture for days on end, and then slowly kill without mercy...

photos of victims being tortured hung above iron shackles and metal cots without any padding to stop the skin from being torn off of its occupant as they screamed and writhed in pain...skulls of past victims in cases describing the injuries that struck them down...tourists and monks slowly walking around, some chatting with each other and some, walking alone, in a kind of stunned silence because the sights they are seeing are not of a long forgotten history they are from 1979...

I walked in stunned silence...

Culture

"Sham-re-up-su-la" meaning greetings and hello.

Everyone is extremely friendly and hospitable here. We rented 2 tuk tuks, with drivers for this week...for the next 6 days we will be in phenom Phen with side trips to other villages.

Many people drive little mopeds and the streets are reminiscent of new york city in rush hour, only with bikes, carts, tuk tuks, and the occasional car or delivery truck.

We have two translators with us Rian & Pov (thats Ree-ahn & Pawv) we are attempting to learn as much as we can from them...how to greet a monk for instance. Bian loves hip hop and Michael jackson. "Ah-Cun" Thank you and I will try to write again...

Oh yea. and upon entering our rooms, Pov had gifts for all of us from her village...so nice.

Planes & Tuk Tuks

Hello to everyone! Jess, Kids, ST3 (Hey Linda)...

so one 14 hr plane ride and then another 6 hr plane ride...Korean air is amazing...lots of food and snacks and new movies to pass the time. I watched 4.

Arrived at the Guest house at about 1am, our room is entirely made of large ivory colored tiles, the beds are like a memory foam type (luxury I was not expecting), and the bathroom is a shower, sink, toilet combination...I showered essentially in front of the sink this morning, lol. The water is even warm. There is just enough room for the two beds, Jay is my roommate for now...he is one of the art majors.

This morning we had Yoga at another guest house to start the day...that was a workout, most of us broke a sweat, seemingly not doing much of anything...Breakfast was eggs and toast and then a about 7 different exotic fruits, some tasted like candy, some were clear like eating a jellyfish (only with better taste) and a purple fruit I will try tomorrow that is apparently something like "oatmeal if it was a fruit"...IDK, we will see about that one.

In a min we are going to the national museum to hear a presentation and then we are traveling to a local university to collaborate for the afternoon.

Who is involved you ask...

These are some amazing links, stories and pictures about the various projects and the area that I will be working in. It's such an amazing undertaking it almost makes the threat of landmines, rebels and exotic diseases almost disappear...we'll talk more about that later though, for now enjoy the info...



Perspectives International Website

Guess What...

So I have been trying to figure out a way to tell everyone that I am going to Cambodia (under China - Click map above to enlarge) with a small group of engineers, artists and nurses. I think there will be 10 of us going for three weeks in January. We will be learning from, studying and working with rural Cambodian villages We will be supporting the villages and starting research that will study the effects of various physical, social and psychological factors on the people. This is year one of four, the teams to follow will build on what we do this year.

We leave in 63 days.