Goodbyes!

Spent the last two weeks in PP and vietnam. It was a great two weeks. Northern vietnam is unbelievable, Hanoi, Sapa, and Halong Bay. I couldnt recommend Sapa and Hanoi enough, they were amazing. Halong Bay was take it or leave it. Beautiful but overrun with tourists.

Leaving Cambodia came too suddenly, even though I knew it was coming. I had an amazing summer and learned so much. It is a beautiful country. I hope to return. But for now... end. of. blog.

One Month Later

It has been almost a month since I updated this. Busy month. It is also three months today since I arrived in Cambodia. The internship at BAB ended on the 27th. It was a very busy last couple of weeks trying to wrap everything up and have a final product completed. It was also many weeks of goodbyes and goodbye parties, and doing things one last time. Speaking of last times - the Fair, the enchanting alluring evil wonderful Fair... has been torn down. It was a sad day when I heard about it. No warning and no notice, the government just tore it down. Only one lonely ferris wheel still stands amidst a pile of debris. Shed a tear for the Fair.

I am back in PP for the next three days - I got back on Friday from Thailand. I was in Thailand for about 10 days with Grace. We flew into Bangkok on the 30th. It was a shock to arrive in a huge city, and get in an actual car, and drive through traffic on freeways. There is still an element of otherness - tons of motorbikes, some tuktuks, and pad thai in the street, but for the most part it is a huge major city and has everything that huge cities have.

We left Bangkok after only a day and took a bus and boat to Koh Tao, an island on the East coast of Thailand. The island itself was beautiful, but the area I stayed in was ruined by over development and overrun with tourists. We stayed there for four days to do an Open Water Diver Certification scuba course. The four days of the course ended up being the highlight of my time in Thailand by far. It is a very unreal experience breathing underwater. Very calming. The day after the course ended we got on a boat and headed to Koh Phangan, one island South of Koh Tao. This was much more what I expected Thailand to be. We stayed at a resort away from the main town/beach on the island. Beautiful. Left there on thursday morning at 10am and traveled for 23 hours to get back to PP. Went from truck to boat to bus to taxi to plane to tuk tuk.

24 hours after that I rented a dirt bike and drove 3 hours to the coast of Cambodia. Stayed overnight and spent Sunday touring through a town of ruined French colonial mansions. They were overgrown and abandoned, crumbling. Haunted looking. Leaving for Hanoi on Thursday..

Vietnam

this weekend i went to ho chi minh city with my friend grace. its a 6 hour bus ride from phnom penh but it was surprisingly quick and painless - and very cheap. we arrived on thursday afternoon, found a guest house, and headed out to wander around the city. the first place we went was the central marketplace. its huge but a lot like the markets in pp. slightly cleaner. we bought some fruit to have with wine on the balcony of our guesthouse, and continued wandering. after 3 hours of roaming around we headed back to the guesthouse and had bread and cheese (which is sold on the street for 25 cents) with fruit for dinner. we were staying in the backpacker neighbourhood so after dinner we went out and played pool with other travelers.

on friday we did all the main tourist sights in ho chi minh. first was the fine arts museum, which is in a striking old colonial mansion. it was surprising how unsupervised it was, we just walked in... roamed around.. and left. no one seemed to be in charge of the place at all. next we went to the war remnants museum, which was just horrific. some of the most disturbing pictures i have ever seem. especially the pictures of victims of the chemical weapons during the vietnam war. there was also photos of groups of civilians (women and children) looking absolutely terrified, and the caption under the photo would read something like: as soon as i walked away from taking this picture the soldiers opened fire. i heard screams and bodies falling but i didnt look back. after the war museum we stopped and had pho - a famous vietnamese noodle soup. it was delicious. after lunch we walked to the nicer, ritzy part of ho chi minh and checked out the malls and upscale hotels.

aside from the rich area (which was small) ho chi minh seemed like a bigger, slightly cleaner, more chaotic version of phnom penh. the traffic and lack of road rules is much worse - to the point where it is sometimes impossible to cross the street, and the city itself is many times bigger, but the general look of it was not that different.

after our day of touring around we went to dinner at a jazz bar called Sax n Art, relaxed and listening to live jazz. very nice place.

saturday we signed up to do a one day tour of the mekong delta. the tour started at 8am with a bus trip 2 hours to a village called mythos. there we got on a bus and toured around a few islands, saw local villagers making coconut candy (which is delicious), had lunch, listened to traditional vietnamese music, and took a ride on row boats through the narrow canals of the delta. it was a totally new landscape - something i had never seen before. its just all water really... the foliage is dense and huts and small homes just appear our of nowhere barely visible through the trees. the people travel by boat along canals that are lined with tall grasses/trees.

saturday night we went out for sushi dinner - sushi is not popular and probably not a smart idea in pp so it was great to eat it again. then we went to an expat bar and hung out with a large group of german people who were having a private party that they nicely included us in. sunday morning we got back on the bus and headed home. overall it was a great trip. i plan on going back to vietnam in august - to the northern part to see hanoi, and i cant wait...

random

for the last couple of weeks i have been in phnom penh working and hanging out with the other interns. i definitely know the city pretty well now. there are some great restaurants, used book stores and shops which make it feel fairly quaint and friendly. but there is still an edge to it. and no mcdonalds:) did some tourist things last weekend - went to the killing fields, which is an area outside pp where the khmer rouge executed thousands of people and buried them in mass graves. it was pretty disturbing/horrific/incomprehensible. about half of the graves still have not been excavated.

on a lighter note, last saturday i went to my first khmer hip hop show. it was surreal. it was in a dive bar/club that they charged $2 admission to get into (first time ive ever paid cover in cambodia, and likely the last). they took songs like sexyback and changed the words to khmer. and yelled "khmer" a lot (except they pronounce it "khmai"). and the only beer they were serving was budweiser.

on sunday a group of us went to the phnom penh hotel and paid $5 to spend the day swimming. it started to pour rain about an hour after we got there and we decided to wait it out and ended up in the pool in torrential rain for two hours. it got really cold but they were going to charge us another $8 each to go into the hottub so we were stuck.

otherwise work has been good. we are starting to wrap thing up a little bit but everything takes longer than you think it will and there are a lot of editing things that need to get finished. some of the interns are leaving as early as next week.

update

not too much has been going on, i was sick for the week after i got back from kep and didnt really get out of bed. since then i have been catching up on work, we just finished our rough draft of our children's rights manual. im doing a lot of reading - am trying to read a bunch of kurt vonnegut books (so far: breakfast of champions, cats cradle, mother night and player piano), and also tom robbins books. am currently distracted by the poisonwood bible though. all of which has nothing to do with cambodia.

phnom penh is feeling like home now, as much as it still gets exhausting to be constantly harassed by moto drivers... "moto" "moto" "moto"... its a constant chorus as i walk down the street. just the general staring is still off-putting. saw a kid on the back of a moto attached to an IV which was interesting. its raining almost every day now, on and off, but its much cooler which i like.

we had a guest speaker last week who works with the defense support section of the united nations assistance to the khmer rouge tribunals. it was very interesting, definitely the kind of work that i would like to get involved in - but as the guest speaker said - international criminal law is very in and glamorous right now in the legal world so its hard to get into.

went out on canada day and sang karaoke. cambodians love karaoke. for some reason we were hanging out with a cambodian movie star and he was very into it. every other song was khmer pop music. having a bbq tomorrow for july 4th. otherwise the office is quiet this week because the other half of the interns is in Kep doing what we were doing two weeks ago.

trip to Kep

this week i went with a group of interns to a small village on the coast of cambodia near the border of vietnam. the drive down on monday morning was terrible - the bus was old, the roads were terrible, and the AC was broken. after 5 sweaty, bumpy hours in a cramped bus with blaring khmer karoake music we finally arrived. it was quickly apparent that the drive was worth it. our guesthouse was on a hill overlooking the ocean. it was beautiful, lush and green. i shared a bungalow with my bff here - grace - and we had an ocean view and hammocks on the balcony. the first day we had the afternoon off, so i spent it reading in the hammock. later on we all had dinner and played cards.

tuesday morning we headed out to the village where we were going to be working. the village is made up of a group of families who had been active khmer rouge until the mid 90s. when they defected they were relocated to the south and formed a village. BAB set up a center to help them out. the center offers classes for the kids, and is also working on establishing a farm on the surrounding land to provide food for the village. our job for the week was to help with the farming and teaching.

after orientation on tuesday grace and i headed to the kampot caves, which is a small rocky mountain with caves all through it. when we arrived we were met by two enthusiastic young men who wanted to be our guides. we accepted their offer and headed into the mountain. it ended up being an amazing afternoon. they took us into some really out of the way caves. near the end of the tour we came out of the back of the mountain and they asked us if we wanted to climb up and over it to get back to our moto driver. we decided to go for it and while it was quite treacherous it was definitely worth it.

wednesday morning we left really early to get to the village to do some farming. grace and i arrived before everyone else and were met by a stern looking man who silently handed us each a hoe and started walking out into the fields. we followed behind apprehensively. he demonstrated what he wanted us to do and then stood sternly watching us as we dug at this field. it was slightly unnerving. the others arrived about half an hour later and we finally figured out what we were supposed to be doing - which was not aimlessly digging at a field. we were meant to plant a corn field. once we got started it only took the group of us about 3 hours. 3 hours of farming in the heat was enough for us though. i was feeling pretty terrible from what i thought was sunstroke.

i spent the next two days in bed with a fever, vomiting etc. decided to try to get up on friday morning to teach. i made it through the class but then felt worse than ever and was eventually sent back to phnom penh in the back of a taxi. so im back now, in bed, feeling somewhat better but still pretty terrible. the trip overall was great when i wasnt sick. i was upset to have to miss out on the last few days. the country side is just beautiful. it really became clear how most of the country really lives. phnom penh is the only really urban area and even saying that feels like a bit of a stretch considering what most people feel is urban.

working with the kids is what effected me the most. they are so enthusiastic, energetic, and very motivated to learn. the problem is that there are about 30 or 40 of them in a tiny class, with very little resources and the age range is from about 4 to 12 or older in one room. it is a difficult environment to teach anything in. they are all desperate for any kind of individual attention and learn quickly when you can take the time to sit down with them in a small group of 2 or 3.

more ferris wheel and the beach

Went to the beach last weekend - Sihanoukville. It was beautiful. Not totally developed although getting there. Lots of hut type bars on the beach, then our bungalow/hotel was right on the water. It was a great time. Lots of reading, sleeping and relaxing. The water was warm and it was sunny the whole weekend.

Also went back to that fair with the ferris wheel. Rode a different ferris wheel, this one was smaller and equally sketchy. the fair is just so hilarious. it is something that just would not happen back home. its more a random collection of old rides on the field. you just ride your motorbike right up to the ride and pay about 25 cents, they stop the ride and you get on. and usually you are the only one on the ride. i think i wrote about this before but everytime i am there i just find it eerily delightful.

slums and shadiness

Over the past few days I have started to get acquainted with the darker, dangerous side of Phnom Penh, which considering how long I’ve been here is not that surprising. You can only be oblivious for so long. The different events that kind of brought it home to me were not crazy in and of themselves, it is more the sense of cold violence that is chilling - the aggression and the potential for something horrible to happen and go largely un-noticed.

The first experience happened later in the night on Monday, probably around 10pm. I was walking out of the parking lot on the way to my friend’s apartment, chatting and not paying too much attention to what was going on around me – the street seemed totally quiet. My friend quickly brought it to my attention that we were being followed very purposefully and the guy was hurrying up as he approached us. I turned around quickly and it was pretty obvious what the man’s intention was. We started to walk faster and turned quickly into the alley of the building, hoping that he would realize that we were going inside and not follow. The last time I turned around he had just appeared at the start of the alley still following us. After that my friend told me to run and we sprinted up the stairs to his door and quickly went inside. It was disturbing because would-be-thief knew that we were watching him, we all knew what was going on, but he was not at all deterred.

Apparently if you are being robbed here and you yell “JOW” (khmer for thief) and there are any people in the streets they will just mob the guy and beat the hell out of him. There is a strongly felt sense of justice and right and wrong. Unfortunately for us there was no one around that night and by the time anyone came outside it would have been too late.

The next thing that happened was up at Olympic Stadium while I was playing soccer. I ran to get the ball and when I turned around no one was paying attention. Everyone had gathered - probably a hundred people and about 30 motorbikes – and there were two groups of people each trying to hold back two guys who clearly wanted to fight. One of them had picked up a metal pole that is used as a goal post and eventually broke away from the group and started chasing the other guy. It was crazy because everyone was just kind of watching and no one seemed that bothered. Interested, but not bothered. The guy eventually ran to the bbq and tried to get a knife from the girl there that was cooking. She wouldn’t give it to him so he went back to chasing the guy with the metal pole. Eventually it all dispersed but there was definitely a potential for violence and it didn’t seem like anyone was going to step in to stop it.

And finally… same day at soccer, a group of guys came out of the gym-ish building next to the dirt area where we play soccer. I guess they saw me playing soccer – a girl playing sports is still a huge ordeal/scene for everyone there – but they gathered on the edge of the field on the side where I was playing (definitely a moment where I was glad that I don’t speak Khmer). I knew that they were watching me but generally whenever western people are up at the fields playing everyone is gathered watching, so I wasn’t really paying attention. Then one of the guys started to follow me around, ON the field. He kept about 5-10 feet away at all times, but he was physically on the field, in the middle of the game, following me around. The look in his eyes was what really creeped me out. His eyes were dead cold, leering with contempt. He looked like he wanted to kill me. He would look down at my legs (I was wearing shorts to just above my knee), then up at me again and even when I looked at him with a look that was like ‘get the hell away from me’ he would just stare blankly back at me. It really freaked me out, and more than that no one else that I was playing soccer with did anything about it – well, none of the Cambodians. The male intern (Nic) that I go up to the field with noticed and made a motion for the guy to leave me alone – but what can we do? He was with a group of 10 of his wrestler friends, and there was no general feeling that what he was doing was offensive. It got to the point where I felt too uncomfortable to keep playing and had to get Nic to leave with me. That was really my first bad experience playing soccer. Other than that it had been really positive and fun.

I guess what it comes down to with all of these little incidents that have colored my impression of the city is that sometimes the cultural gap feels exhausting and oppressive. There just isn’t that sense of security, cleanliness, access to medical care etc that I don’t even think about when it is there. It is easy to forget that sometimes I’m walking on thin ice here - because it is a great place and the people are generally overwhelmingly friendly. Especially at night though, attitudes change and the man on the corner who smiles at me during the day and says hello will turn into the man glaring at me and thinking about stealing my bag. The attitude towards women just becomes completely disrespectful and almost contemptuous.

Then there is the shady shady bureaucracy. I had to get my visa renewed this week, because I have been here almost one month. First of all, the fee is $40 (give or take, and depending who you ask), which seems steep for a one month extension on a single entry visa – which means that I can’t even leave the country in this coming month without paying extra. Anyways, I couldn’t find the right travel office to do it and I was feeling nauseous traveling around on a very slow moto in roughly 38 degree heat and intense humidity, so I went to a regular tourist travel agency. They took my passport, filled out some form and I paid them. 10 minutes after leaving my phone rang and it was the passport office. Apparently I cant pick up my passport until Saturday… and I couldn’t understand why. He was trying to explain but it was lost on me. It is only supposed to take one day. Whatever, nothing I can do. It was hot and I just could not understand what was going on. That happens regularly here. I end up just staring at someone and they are staring back at me and there is no comprehension whatsoever.

So otherwise things here are going great. It is an amazing place and aside from having to be really careful at night I love it. I am getting lots of work done on the children’s rights manual/lesson plans, and also helping with other projects in the office. Trying to get BAB to organize for some of us to teach some classes at the Centre for Children’s Happiness. I think I would enjoy doing some teaching while here and it is always inspiring and uplifting to be around the kids there.

Speaking of teaching, I went to the largest slum in Phnom Penh yesterday to teach a class to some kids there. In January of this year BAB helped to set up a classroom in the slum to teach additional classes to children in the afternoons – kids go to school for 4 hours in the morning here. It was great, the kids were awesome and they enjoyed spending time with us. It was a huge contrast from the orphanage near the dump where they mob you when you walk in. They were well behaved and eager to learn.

The slum itself was shocking. It is a maze of streets and huts built on a huge shallow lake in the north of the city. The water is thick with garbage, including medical waste from a hospital in the city. If that wasn’t bad enough, the government sold the whole lake area illegally to a corporation for development. This means that the area is threatened with eviction, which would leave thousands of families with no home and nowhere to go. The corporation plans to fill in the lake and built a resort. There is a huge legal battle right now over the planned evictions.

orphanage and the dump

yesterday i went on a trip to an orphanage on the edge of phnom penh. the kids there were so excited to see us. i dont know if its just a learned response, or they know that western people will be nice and play with them, but they jump on you as soon as you get there. "whats your name!!!" all of them fighting each other to hold your hand, be picked up, talk to you, dance for you... anything for some attention. we stayed for a while doing dances and playing games, swinging them around in circles. the place itself was small and cramped, and clearly overcrowded. the kids seemed happy enough, but anywhere is better than the dump, which is where a lot of them came from.

in the dump on the outskirts of phnom penh small villages of families live and spend their lives scavenging for garbage. the small children trudge through mountains of trash all day, with no shoes, walking right over broken glass, used needles, and burning garbage. they burn all the plastic and whatever else will burn, so the stench is absolutely unbelievable. i guess you can never really imagine what it would be like - people talk about the families living on the dump, but it is impossible to envision.

after the orphanage we took a trip out there. it was not that far away. maybe a 10 minute walk. all of a sudden you are surrounded by endless rolling hills of garbage. there is one sludge road that garbage trucks roll constantly in and out of. when they reach the heart of the dump they unload the trash and people fight each other to get to it and scavenge through it for anything valuable. they sell the garbage to make money to eat. their homes are huts built right on the garbage. the family, including the children, spend their entire days and nights in the garbage.

the smell and the horrific reality of it was really shocking. it is impossible to empathize, i have no idea how awful that would really be. to make it worse, apparently in rainy season the rain creates sinkholes in the garbage, and people have actually sunk in and drowned in the garbage. the place is so bleak and helpless that i was fighting the urge to just turn and run out of there. it is also strangely silent. people are everywhere picking through trash, but no one speaks. i guess there isnt much to say.

some of the children do get rescued, and go to places like the orphanage, or the center for children's happiness. but there are always more living there, and the adults have no way out.

life

Since getting back from siem reap I have settled into a routine here. I am starting to meet a lot of the other western people here and am getting to know the hangouts. Last friday was the party 'first friday' which happens on the first friday of every month. it is a huge expat party at an outdoor garden bar. it was a good time, very overwhelming with people from everywhere. i met a canadian who informed me that he does not like canadians - which was a first. a bunch of people from france, england, ireland... i have already run into some of the people that i met out and about, at the grocery store and a restaurant - which gives some idea of how small of a city phnom penh is.

probably the most interesting people i met that night were two guys that work at a program here for deportees from the US. one of them was born in a thai refugee camp, moved to the US as a child refugee, spent his life there and then was deported after committing a felony. (new laws put into effect after 9/11 make this standard policy in the states). he was sent back to cambodia even though he had never lived here. a bunch of the deportees have a program here to help the other new deportees who arrive in the country feeling displaced, with nowhere to go, no family, no friends, and unable to speak the language.

i have also spent some time driving around the country just around phnom penh. there is a lot of development going on, although none of it is very logical. housing projects that no one lives in. huge mansions planted randomly next to a wooden shack on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere. my favorite is finding abandoned colonial era buildings. they look haunted and historical. lots of the kids from the villages would chase the motorbike as we drove through, yelling "money". they rarely see white people and i guess the immediate assumption is that we are prime candidates for a handout. it doesnt really get any easier saying no, no matter how many times you have to, but if you do give them money you can see their parents sitting 100 feet away gambling away whatever money their kids collect.

this weekend a bunch of us went swimming again, which is great for a hot sunday afternoon. day to day life is just work from 830 to 5, then soccer or yoga, then dinner and usually going out somewhere to play pool or else hanging out on the roof deck.

last week i went to the Center for Childrens Happiness, which is a childrens home and school that was started by one of the co-founders of bridges across borders. it was an amazing place. the kids were friendly, outgoing, motivated and happy. all of them have been rescued from the dump, where they worked scavenging for garbage. some of them came from families where their parents had tried to sell them into the sex trade. alot of them were orphans whose parents had died of Aids.

today after work we are all going to a candlelight vigil/demonstration to mark the 1 year anniversary of a forced eviction of a slum in the city. one year ago today the military forcibly evicted 1000 families from a slum area and transported them 30 kilometres outside of town and dumped them in a field. the military just arrived in the middle of the night and started burning houses and throwing people onto trucks. the families are still living in the field under tarps and with no access to clean water or any other basic services. the government built a huge and ornate government building on the site where the slum had been .

Siem Reap and Angkor

Our first BAB intern trip was this weekend. Angkor What Tour 2007. We went to Siem Reap to see the temples at Angkor. The trip overall could not have gone better. We rented a bus - which turned out to be a van - and piled 16 of us into it for the five hour drive north. The first night there we went to dinner at a place called Dead Fish Tower, which was kind of like a big treehouse. Two of the interns ended up doing karaoke on stage after dinner. After dinner we went dancing at Angkor What? bar. Turns out our "Angkor What" catch phrase was not an original.

The next day we spent eight hours at Angkor checking out the temples. It was amazing, stunning, beautiful. Also very hot and filled with Japanese tour groups. My favorite temple was Preah Kahn, because it was deserted when we were there so it was easier to really appreciate the history and grandeur of the place. In the afternoon there was a massive rain storm. Four of us bought ponchos from the children there that sell everything from bracelets to musical instruments, and ran through the rain to Angkor Wat - the main temple. There was a monkey there named Mickey Monkey who came up and sat next to me because he was cold in the rain. I got to pet him. It made my day. There was another monkey who had a pet frog, which might of been the most amazing thing ever. He held onto the frog by its leg and wouldnt let it go.

The children at the temples selling things are pretty amazing. They approach tourists in group and follow you around waving bracelets, postcards, musical instruments, water, hats, tshirts, and other items at you. They ask where you are from, what your name is, and then tell you the capital city of whatever country you live in. It is exhausting telling them no. One guy in our group was physically showing them his empty wallet and they still wouldnt leave him alone. When it first started to rain a few of us had gotten into the van to stay dry and the kids surrounded the van waving ponchos at us.

The second night out in Siem Reap was a slightly more tame repeat of the first, then the next morning we headed back home. On the drive home there was a huge thunderstorm. We passed through one village and saw a house on stilts that had collapsed in the wind. It was hard to see someone who has so little to begin with suffering additional hardship. The drive from Phnom Penh to Siem Reap is competely rural - just villages with houses on stilts. It did not appear that the people had access to clean water, and many of the houses had make-shift plastic things out front to try to catch rainwater. We stopped a a rest stop on the way there and all the villagers rushed to try to sell us fried tarantula and other insects. It was hard but I managed to resist the temptation.

After getting home from Siem Reap I was exhausted and took it easy. Monday it was back to work. My group is still working on editing the Family Law manual. It is turning out to be more work than we had anticipated. Hopefully next week we will get started on Children's rights.

Last night we went out to celebrate two birthdays. Had dinner in one huge group, then went to a place called Elsewhere, which is an outdoor patio bar with a pool in the middle. We all ended up in the pool, which apparently happens pretty frequently there.

More Soccer and the Market

Went to the market today at lunch and got linen pants that tie up. I feel truly Cambodian now. I'm not sure I quite look it though. There is something so satisfying about buying clothes for $3. You can buy so much more when its cheap.

After work four of us went back to play more soccer and basketball. We are quite a unique sight there and we have started to draw a crowd. We also played basketball and while we were playing basketball someone stole our soccer ball. I guess I was asking for it leaving it on the side of the court, but it still sucked. It is still awesome actually interacting with the local people though. They tend to be quite standoffish and the language barrier doesnt help, but when you are playing sports it bridges the culture gap.

At work I am editing a manual on Cambodian family law. If anyone has an easy word for "intestate" please let me know. It is interesting but sometimes difficult to stay inside when it seems like there are so many interesting things that we could be doing. We have a theme song for the summer. Its "Here Comes the Hotstepper" - I'm not sure why. Murdera. I am currently on an ongoing hunt to find poker chips here. Apparently they dont use them and they are basically unheard of. I had no trouble finding a kiddie pool though. We are considering putting one on the roof deck. The logistics of it are a little difficult but I think it might work.

Soccer and Pool

Finished four days of orientation yesterday. The focus was on learning teaching methodologies to help us in creating lesson plans on various areas of Cambodian law. The lesson plans will then be taught in villages and schools in the more rural areas. The three BAB people running the program were very energetic and passionate about their work which kept things interesting.

Today we started our actual group work on the area of law that we will be focusing on. I am working on children's rights and protection, which should be interesting.

After work today a bunch of us went to the Olympic Stadium to play soccer. We don't actually play in the stadium, but tons of people gather around the outside area and play soccer, basketball and volleyball every evening. There were four of us and we played with four Cambodians. It was great and we were good enough to be invited back for tomorrow.

Tonight I went back to a local pool bar to play pool. It was great, the girls that work there are very sweet and already know all of our names.

I met two monkeys at the restaurant where I had lunch today - Alladin and Mimi. Alladin was fat, friendly and complacent, just sitting at the bottom of the cage eating peanuts. Mimi was evil and rambunctious.

Went to Wat Phnom with a bunch of the interns, it was beautiful. Got caught in a rainstorm and waited it out on the balcony outside the Wat, watching little Cambodian children pretend to swim in the puddles and chase each other around splashing. There was an elephant hanging around outside, and it had shoes on. I never knew that elephants wore shoes. Also saw another monkey grooming two cats.

Then this afternoon I went to a resort called L'Imprevu with my roomate and three other people that are living in the Volunteer house. It was a great time. We played water polo/handball in teams (Canada v. Other). The pool is a little ways out of the city and it was an interesting drive.

The main program leader of Bridges Across Borders arrived in Phnom Penh today so we start the internship orientation tomorrow.

Arrived in Phnom Penh two days ago. So far so good. It is both beautiful and not so beautiful in very close proximity. Very hot but apparently the heat just broke and this is much cooler than it has been. Thank god because I'm melting. Walked around most of the city yesterday and went to the Royal Palace, National Museum, Wat Ounalum, another Wat (=temple), and the riverfront area which is where a lot of the nicer hotels/bars are. Took a hundred photos but the wireless isnt working so I can't post them yet. Already adjusting to taking a tuktuk and finally got up the nerve to ride a moto today. It was fun, the driver was laughing at me because I was so nervous. Swerving into oncoming traffic to turn left is hard to get used to. There are two functioning traffic lights in the city, and the rest of the intersections are a free for all. The food is good, the volunteer house is everything I could have hoped for - wireless (sometimes), AC in my bedroom, a treadmill upstairs, washing machine, kitchen... and I only have to go upstairs to be at work. I don't know if that would be ideal long term but for an internship its great. My only concern is the lack of cheese. Cambodian people hate cheese and will not touch it. They have something called Prahok (that might not be right) but its a fermented fish paste (it reeks) - they love it and foreigners don't touch it. So for them, cheese is "foreigner prahok". On the up side, the food in general is great, and especially the fruit. I've been eating pamello, rambutan, dragonfruit...I've learned a couple Khmer words but nothing impressive yet.

At one of the temples we met an old man who took us into a room in a smaller temple and we sat down and he prayed with/for us. Also splashed some water on us and lit incense. I have no idea what he was saying but it was pretty amazing the way he said it and the ornate statue of buddha with lights, candles and incense.

Walking through the city I constantly get asked if I need a tuktuk or moto, and around the tourist sites there are lots of beggars and children asking for money. But generally people just either stare or ignore me when I walk by. The people that I have approached, talked to, or smiled at, have all been very nice and made attempts to understand what I'm asking. Very few people speak english but some like to try. One woman I was talking to somehow decided that I had told her that I had children and was asking how old they were. I said they were five. HA. Too much effort to explain that we weren't understanding each other.

Today I went to the Russian Marketplace - which I'm pretty sure isn't Russian - and wandered around. It was ridiculously hot, but had everything imaginable: clothes, jewelry, puma shoes, chanel purses, abercrombie shirts, jeans, short (all in piles in booths/stalls), trinkets, dvds, cds, tires, screws, paint... Also went to Tuol Sleng which is the genocide museum. It was totally overwhelming. It's not really done up and a lot of it is pretty much how it was left when the Democratic Kampuchea ended in 1979. I dont think I've ever been that horrified visiting a historical site.