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 .