Home. It seems somehow unreal. I can only liken it to a wedding or some other really big event. You spend months and months planning for every detail.... and then it's over in the blink of an eye. I feel that way right now. It isn't entirely a good feeling. So much time, so much effort, so much planning, reading... we bought clothes appropriate for the weather, we got shots, we took pills, we made plans for the house and the dogs and the pool and work while we were away.... we updated our will (really!) and now it's all behind us so very soon.
Coming back from a place like Cambodia is harder than coming home from some places. You can't help but bring ghosts with you. I think of Yoen, our driver, and how hard he is working to provide a home and an education for his family.... I think of the Tabitha worker who witnessed her father and brothers shot point blank on the day the Khmer Rouge evacuated Phnom Penh when she was just 4 years old... I think of that tiny little beggar girl carrying her baby brother or sister (or someone else's baby provided to motivate sympathy by the beggar coordinator) in a sling over her shoulder, I think of the amputee in the market place who when I bent down to put some money in his pocket because he didnt' have any arms I accidentally dropped one of my bags and it landed right on his lap and all he could do was sit there awkwardly waiting for me to pick it up because one day while at farming he bent to pick up a metal object in his path without thinking. These are just a few of the ghosts.
There are joyful memories, too. Brennan counting how many naked babies he saw along the way, oblivious to the fact that once upon a time he delighted in being a naked baby. Kaley teaching the Australian Cambodia girls how to straighten their hair and get their make up just so. Watching the kids dancing the Apsara with their new friends. Derek riding shotgun with Yoen discussing the sights of Phnom Penh along the way. Jim talking motorcycles with the moto drivers. The look on those nannies faces when they first laid eyes on me and the kids. Hearing that cyclo driver say "I remember!!" Watching the kids work harder than they've ever worked and so willingly to build those houses. The glow in the eye of the families as they thanked us for their simple homes. The taste of the pumpkin muffin at the Java Cafe. The blissful warm swimming pool in Siem Reap. There are soooo many good memories.
And of course I have to ask myself what we learned.... I suppose I should speak just for myself but I'll throw in a couple for the rest of my crew, too....
Jim learned that Cambodia wasn't as bad as he thought it would be. I heard him say so myself. :-) Derek probably learned that vacations are best NOT taken with a family, but still he was an amazing travelling companion. I learned that when there's shopping involved, it's always better to travel with a girlfriend, even when the shopping is in a Cambodian market. I really regretted that I didn't have a girlfriend to share the joy of buying a beautifully handmade straw handbag at a ridiculously low price! We learned that if you're careful with handwashing and with what you eat and drink, you can spend two weeks in Cambodia and never even get a tummy ache.... if you're lucky. Brennan and Kaley learned (I think) that their being taken to the orphanage by their birthfamilies was not an act of carelessness, but rather a very careful and loving choice to make sure they would survive in this devastated land. We learned that kids in the orphanages still are way healthier than kids in the streets even after all these years. We learned that there are now people and organizations in place through which we can be making a difference in Cambodia through sending even modest gifts. We learned that thank you transcends language barriers. We learned what really hot weather is and just how much sweat we are capable of producing! We learned that Cambodian girls are really "hot" and just might make good girlfriends! (Right, Brennan?) We learned that a trip to Australia is probably in our future. We learned (again) how great our families and friends are as love, prayers, and guestbook notes sustained and encouraged us all along the way! We learned (at least some of us did) that this was not a once in a lifetime trip, but rather a step in the journey of a lifelong relationship with a land, its culture, and its inspiring people. We learned a lot more than that, but that's enough for here.
One other reflection... I remember the first day of the housebuilding when we were told it was time for a water break and summoned to the rain barrel for a mandatory cooling off. The procedure was that you leaned your head over the barrel and one of the Tabitha workers would take a pot of the cold water and dump it on your head and neck - several times. The water took your breath away and was quite shocking. But you came up from the experienced renewed.... temporarily oblivious to the heat. I remember as the water hit my head for the first time, having the very clear thought go through my head "This is probably as close as I'll ever come to being re-baptized." We Presbyterians, most Christians for that matter, believe that baptism only happens and is necessary once. But I can't escape the thought that sometimes perhaps God rebaptizes us, whether we realize it or not.
Water, River, Spirit, Grace
Sweep over me, sweep over me!
Recarve the depths your fingers traced
In sculpting me, in sculpting me.
Cyberworld is very small. Over the past few years I have surfed my way through the websites of a guy from Britain by the name of Andy Brouwer. His website chronicles his many trips to Cambodia since 1994. I think it was reading his travel reports that first got me thinking seriously about returning to Cambodia - but I never had written to him or told him so. I submitted a brief trip report and hotel review to a travel website that was helpful to me in my trip planning. I was somewhat apologetic in my review of the 4 star hotels since many of the list members are backpackers and adventurers who go to $5 a night guest house and wouldn't be caught dead in a 4 star hotel. To my surprise, among the people who wrote to me were Andy Brouwer. He told me how envious he was that I was in Cambodia in 1991 since his first trip wasn't until 1994. He remarked how strong and brave I must be to have done such a thing and teasingly admonished me not to belittle myself for choosing the 4 star hotels this time around. (OK Marcy, you can stop rolling on the floor laughing right now about the brave part!) Anyway, I wrote him back and told him that I wasn't brave, just naive and driven in 1991 and told him a bit more about this recent trip, about how his website had been part of my inspiration, and why it was important to me to go back. I got the following response back from him, "Thanks for your story. I'm really chuffed (that must be a British term) that I had a little bit-part to play in your returning to Cambodia and I'm so pleased you and your children will likely return.... it's a country and a people I can't stay away from... and maybe one day we'll bump into each other.... we'll be the ones with the big beaming smiles knowing we're in a place we love. Andy B"
Amen.
Monday, July 18, 2005
Monday, July 11, 2005
Day 16
Angkor What? Well first of all, let me just sooo confused about what day of the week it is! We've been doing too much moving around I guess. Today was our last day in Cambodia and we spent it in Siem Reap. After spending much of the day yesterday trekking through REALLY hot weather and visiting temples, we decided that we were templed out. And it would have cost us another $20 per person to spend another day visiting temples so we opted to do something different. I know, a true historian or archaeology buff would be appalled, but we saw Angkor Wat and Ta Prohm and those are the biggies.
Anyway, this morning Phirom our driver picked us up, and the mom & daughter (Deborah & Elena) from the housebuilding who were also spending their last day in Cambodia. They are from Perth, Australia. Anyway, we headed out of the city in the van and went down this very dry, dirty, clay baked road with big potholes. Lining the side of the road were straw houses built on sort of platform floors.... and lots of naked babies running around. For a while Brennan was keeping count of how many naked babies he had seen but he finally gave up. I don't think he could count that high! Anyway, we later learned that the houses are built this way so that they can easily be moved whenever the rainy season causes the water to rise.
We were taking a boat through a village of Cambodian and Vietnamese boat people who live on the edges of the Tonle Sap Lake. It is a very large mucky muddy lake. Amazingly, the folks who live in these floatable houses and actual houseboats are some of the healthiest looking people we have seen in Cambodia. Their diet is made up primarily of fish and clearly it is good for them. But what a hard life! The houses/boats are not more than 12 by 12, and when the water rises suddenly it must be frightening. The boats that you take out are beautiful wooden boats. Ours was a private hire just for our group, some were a bit bigger and were full of Korean and Japanese tourists. We learned from our guide that last year several million tourists from other Asian countries visited Siem Reap for weekend getaways. It hasn't helped the economy much, however, according to him. He said that the Koreans stay in hotels built, run, and staffed by Koreans, eat in Korean restaurants, and take tours given by Korean guides. The same with the Japanese and others. Interesting.
Anyway, imagine a muddy, grassy, bog like river flowing into a lake that has dozens of these fairly large boat powered with rudders attached to engines that sound like lawn mowers. And then imagine that because it is the rainy season, the village is in the process of moving the school - which is also a houseboat but a fairly large houseboat. Now imagine that it is about 95 degrees, very humid and your boat gets stuck in the middle of this massive boat traffic jam as you try to make your way back at the end of your tour. Now imagine that your friends (Deb & Elena) have a flight to catch at 1 pm. And at 11:15 you're stuck in the water trying to figure out how you can climb from boat to boat in order to get to the edge of the river and walk back to where the van is parked. Imagine that Cambodia boat drivers in a state of "river rage" as they jockey for position and occasionally break chunks off of each others boats. Oh, and one more thing --- a lot of these villagers make their livelihood raising crocodiles and selling their skins, so along this river you're thinking of walking through to get to the edge there are literally wooden pens of crocodiles. We had a good (and aggressive!) driver so when a space opened up between the school boat and the river's edge, he quickly gunned his way through and we made it back to the dock without having to climb. Whew. Eventually there will be lots of photos of this, too. Our "deckhands" were about 5 & 7 years old and the cutest little guys in the world. They are working to help out their mom. As we were floating out in the lake, we were approached by about a half dozen little boys literally paddling their way along and floating in laundry tubs!!!! They made their way right to the side of our boat and asked for money. I couldn't believe it - even out in the middle of the lake I was a marked target for beggars. I jokingly asked the driver if I gave these kids a little money if suddenly 100 little kids would show up in tubs at the side of the boat. I was joking, but he was quite serious when he said, "yes - no give money unless you want the whole bowl navy out here." It's interesting that some little guys will look for boathand jobs to earn a bit of money while others will turn to begging. Makes you wonder what the difference is in them, and who will fare better in the long run.
Once we finally were back on dry land it was a wild ride back to town. Phirom dropped us off at the hotel at about 11:50 and headed to the airport with the others. We had to be out of our rooms by noon to avoid an extra charge. We quickly packed and went to the lobby for a drink before heading to the pool for a while. There was something going on in the lobby. There was still lots of security there for the ASEAN energy ministers conference, but everything was stepped up. Finally one of the bellboys came over and excitedly told us that Hun Sen, the Prime Minister of Cambodia would be arriving any minute. He would be the equivalent to the president of Cambodia. So of course, we had to hang out and gawk with the rest of the Cambodians. On his arrival they had Apsara dancers do a welcome dance, complete with flower petals for him to walk on. Very cool. After seeing our glimpse of Hun Sen, we hit the pool for an hour before Phirom picked us back up. It was absolutely beautiful and warm perfect water. Forget the Caribbean - go to Siem Reap for sunshine and warm water!!
We visited the market in Siem Reap after he picked us up. We had been told prices would be much higher there but we didn't find that. It was actually airier and not as crowded as the markets in Phnom Penh. Of course they didn't have all of the pirated DVD's either. We picked up a few more things until the guys couldn't stand it anymore. I'm a terrible bargainer, too. I hate having to barter with people who have so little, but I know that it's part of the game. If you pay more than half of the original asking price you've probably been had.
There is also a FCC (Foreign Correspondents Club) restaurant in Siem Reap so we headed there for a snack and cold drink before heading to the airport. There was a pool table there (hooray!) so B & K enjoyed their last few moments in Siem Reap after all.
At the airport we had no problems getting through customs, although the immigration people were very curious about Brennan and Kaley. I heard several tell them, "You lucky." Kaley has said that she wants to learn some Khmer before visiting again so that she can at least say a couple of things when they say "You no speak Khmer?" Right now we still only know how to say Greetings, Thank You, Food, and Dog. That doesn't quite cut it!
As we were waiting to board there was some kind of excitement going on at the airport. Several firetrucks outside, lots of people running around with walkie talkies, but no announcements in English about what was going on. Our plain arrived safely and was quickly turned around to take us to Bangkok so we left with no clue what was happening. That's the hard part of travelling in a country like Cambodia. Sometimes you're just not sure what's going on! Oh, one other very yucky thing. The bag that we had taken with us to the housebuilding and Sihanoukville was CRAWLING with bugs when we took it out of the van at the airport. I have suspected that "we brought back guests" from Sihanoukville and I think they hatched from sitting in the hot van all day. Since I didn't feel good about that bag anyway, I had put all of our dirty clothes that we wouldn't need in Honolulu in it thinking we would just leave it closed. When we got to the airport to check our bags they asked if there were any bags we didn't want in Bangkok that we wanted sent straight to Honolulu. Bonus! The buggy bag stayed in the belly of some plane all night and we didn't have to touch it. You know if you try to bring so much as an apple back into the country you can get in huge trouble because of concerns about flies and bugs.... but we can bring a suitcase covered with creepy crawlers and it's no problem. Don't worry, I'll be spraying it with the strongest bug spray I can find before we go any farther with it! We all have a good many bites all over us - but we've faithfully taken our malaria medicine so I feel like we don't have to worry about it. The other bug bite concern is dengue fever, which is survivable but makes you feel like you'd rather not from what I understand. The incubation on it is very short, though, so if we were going to have a problem with it we would have by now.
Anyway, our last day in Cambodia will go down in our history as one of our more bizarre days and that is somehow fitting. Cambodia has become a wonderful place to visit for the adventurous at heart, but it is the most bizarre mixture of progress and simplicity that you'll find anywhere. It can be joyful and despairing, progressive but backwards, poverty stricken but full all at the same time. Much of it leaves you scratching your head. As we were travelling to the airport, Derek came up with the best travel slogan for Cambodia that we could think of.... "Welcome to Cambodia. Please watch your step." Steep stairs, broken streets, slippery clay mud, big old spiders, and piles of elephant poop might await you at every turn. But if you have an open heart and mind, it's all part of the adventure.
Our flight to Bangkok was about an hour on Siem Reap Airways. Again a nice large prop plane. They don't waste any time. As soon as the last person is boarded (and they board early!) the plane takes off! No sitting around, no lengthy instructions, you just go. I liked it.
Tomorrow we cross the international date line and get the day back that we lost on the way here. Go figure.
Hugs -
Lisa & Crew
Lisa & Crew
Sunday, July 10, 2005
Day 15
Hey everybody -We got up early this morning to make our way to the Phnom Penh airport. Saying goodbye to Yoen was sad... but in the Khmer tradition we kept a stiff upper lip. He was a dear man. I recommend him if anyone is thinking of traveling to Cambodia. Our 9:50 flight was on a mid-size prop plane with Siem Reap Airways. We arrived a bit early, easily gathered our luggage and found our driver, Phirom. He is a younger man who is a tour guide and translator. He worked on the Tombraider movie when it was filmed here.
It was HOT & sunny today and we spent much of the day touring temples. It just seems wrong to come to Cambodia without visiting Angkor Wat, truly one of the wonders of the world. I'm sure Jim's photos will be awesome. He only took about 300 at the temples! It's most amazing to think that these were built without equipment back from the 9th to the 14th century. Very very steep stairs in parts that are crumbling. I suspect in just a few years you won't be allowed to wander where we wandered today. The kids didn't enjoy it. No beating around the bush. It was in the jungle, it was hot, and they were really missing their Aussie friends.
One of the other families, a mom and a daughter, had also traveled here and we hooked up for dinner. We went to the Khmer version of Dixie Stampede (just kidding) and went to a buffet Khmer dinner and Apsara dancer show. The dancing was good. The food was really weird and pretty yucky in my opinion. But oh well. S
iem Reap is amazing. I expected less than Phnom Penh but it really has a European feeling and some very nice hotels. We only paid about $60 US a night for our room here and it is truly a 4 star hotel. It is sort of freaky though.... there is some kind of Asian summit for energy officials from a number of nations going on at this hotel so there are TONS of police and we have to go through metal detectors every time we come and go. It's interesting to see that Cambodia can be so organized when it needs to be!
We've been puzzled the whole time we've been here about how babies "go poo" since most babies aren't wearing diapers just little pants. Well today, in the middle of the temples that are supposed to be holy, we see this woman drop her babies little pants, hold the baby up under the arms, and he poops on the floor of the temple. YUCK!!! She then scooped it up in a paper bag and threw it away. They claim this is a much better way to toilet train kids... but I'm not convinced.
Tomorrow we're going to tour a Vietnamese/ Cambodian fishing village in the morning. In the afternoon we may hit another temple and the market before going to the airport in the late afternoon. We fly back to Bangkok in the evening.I forgot to mention I think that Brennan & Kaley were given permanent visa status upon our arrival here so they got in to visit the temples for free. The rest of us had to pay $20. Don't ask me what they're doing with all of these tourism dollars because they're sure not using it for the roads, or the ruins themselves. And there are a lot of tourists. Last year 1 million people visit Angkor Wat.
Leaving Cambodia once and for all tomorrow will be bittersweet. Brennan and Kaley are already asking when we can come back. I told them that in a couple of years they'll be old enough to come on their own. That's hard to believe, isn't it?They're also talking about when we can go to Australia. Some of the kids in the group were cooking up the idea of having a reunion in Tazmania. Where the heck is Tazmania? I though that was something in a Warner Brothers cartoon?
Oh well... all is well here. We're healthy and happy if a bit tired. My neck is covered in bug bites for some reason but everyone else seems OK. I'm afraid I may have been attacked by some kind of bed bug on our last night in Sihanoukville. Yuck Yuck Yuck. But if that's the worst thing.... I'm happy.Thanks again for all of the support and prayers. This has truly been an amazing journey.
Hugs, Lisa & Crew
Saturday, July 9, 2005
Day 14
We awoke this morning to sunshine in Sihanoukville at last.... but it didn't last. By the time we were halfway through breakfast the monsoons had begun again. I'm afraid that forever I'll think of Sihanoukville as a wet seedy spot. During our little closing celebration last night Jan, the Director of Tabitha Cambodia, said that she never had a team have to work through as much rain as our team did to build houses and that she was amazed that we all went back for a second day. To be honest I don't think that giving in ever crossed our minds, but it is good to go down in history as the wettest housebuilding ever. Oh well - at least it wasn't too hot.
The kids were not the happiest campers this morning. Since they had their own room I told them that as long as they stayed in it bedtime was up to them last night. When I went to wake them this morning I tripped over extra kids on the floor. I guess they had quite the slumber party. We again had two busses on the way back and the kids had their own bus. From what I hear it was a more melancholy ride than on the way down.
The ride back was long and we didn't get to Phnom Penh until around 1 pm. Saying goodbye at the Golden Gate Hotel proved to be easier than I expected.... because Brennan and Kaley invited all of the other kids over to our hotel! Yoen, our driver came for us in his van and we loaded up a bunch of teenagers and came back to the Phnom Penh Hotel to check in. Of course the other kids were awestruck by our fancy hotel and had lots of comments to make. I reminded them that it was Princess Kaley who really didn't want to share her room with lizards again.
Jim & Derek stayed at the hotel and 6 Khmer teenagers and I headed off to the Russian market with Yoen. For once, Yoen was willing to let me go in the market on my own! I think he was intimidated by all of these kids, too! We mostly went to the CD & DVD booths and the kids picked up some more of those $2 DVD's. They already had Bewitched. Amazing. I met a nice family from Canada who were very curious about all of these English speaking Khmer kids I was running around with. If I thought we'd drawn the beggars before, this took the cake. Big white woman roaming through market with English speaking Khmer kids surely has enough to give us, right? Funny thing is some of the beggars now recognized me and asked where my "friends" were meaning Jim and Derek. I was wearing a "Believe" rubber band bracelet throughout the trip sent to me by a friend, and one of the little beggar boys was fingering it and asking me in English what it said. "Believe" I said. "What that mean?" he asked. I used the simplest words I could think of and told him that it means to always have hope that God is taking care of you and something better will happen in the future. "Oh," he said, "I like!" I slipped off the bracelet and gave it to him and his face lit up like a Christmas tree. Really sweet. All of the other kids we were with were adopted at a later age and are much braver about food. They were buying really funky stuff to eat in the market (one young man Vitha was walking around gnawing on a duck!) and Kaley and I in particular just watched with horror!
We then headed to the riverfront and picked up the ring Kaley had designed. It is very pretty and suits here well. Hopefully it will be something that she will treasure. Then it was back to the hotel and the pool. By the time all was said and done there were 9 Khmer adoptee teenagers happily splashing away and the hotel staff standing around with their mouths hanging open. Too funny.
When the other parents swung by to pick up the kids just a little while ago I went from being "good mom" to "mean mom" because I wouldn't let B & K go back to the other hotel with them. It was time for goodbye as hard as it was. Actually, it wasn't as hard as I expected because even though the kids live so far apart there was truly a "see you later" feel to their goodbyes. They will keep in touch via email and have promised to return to build houses again. Oy vey. I'm gonna have to save my pennies!!
I was very emotional when I thanked Jan, the Tabitha Director and Melita, the Australian woman who organized this particular housebuilding project. Our first week in Cambodia, while interesting and seeing the Nannies was awesome, I think the kids felt like we could have been in any third world country. We could have been in Mexico or the Dominican Republic again for all they could tell. But being with these other adoptees, hanging out with the Khmer Tabitha staff members, and getting out into the villages to meet the people established a very real connection for them to Cambodia and its people. I have seen in the past two weeks that through and through Brennan and Kaley are as American as I am, but I think that they now have a pride in their Khmer heritage that was simply not available to them before. As we turned away from tearfully waving goodbye to their friends, Brennan said to me, "This was awesome. It was so much better than I thought it would be. It was really great mom." BIG BIG LUMP IN MOM'S THROAT!!!!
We have quieted down now and all seems forgiven for my making them stay here at the hotel tonight. They are down in the poolroom shooting pool. This has become quite an obsession for them as it is BIG in Cambodia and Asia. I'm going to try to sort through mountains of clothes and suitcases and consolidate what we will need for the next couple of days. There are rumors that we have all brought some small black bugs back from Sihanoukville with us in our suitcases.... so I'm not real thrilled at the idea of opening them. But after yesterday's frog incident.... I guess I can handle it.
Tomorrow morning we will leave the hotel at 7:30 for the airport. At about 9:30 we have a one hour flight to Siem Reap. This is the center of the ancient Khmer temples and considered one of the wonders of the world. It is also where the movie Tombraider was filmed and where Angelina Jolie adopted her son Maddox and has built a house. The driver we have scheduled to meet us was a translator during the filming. We will have most of the day tomorrow to tour and then most of the next day since our flight to Bangkok isn't until evening. I'm not really sure how many temples we will want to visit. I'm afraid I've started to have the sense that "If you've seen one temple, you've seen them all" over the past days even though that isn't very fair. I do know that in Siem Reap I want the kids to have an elephant ride up the side of one of the pyramid like temples and we're going to an Apsara dance show in the evening. Should be cool.
But before that, we will wave at the Nutrition Center, drive to the airport, say goodbye to our friend Yoen, and say goodbye to Phnom Penh. Phnom Penh - a city that I left so gladly 14 years ago and thought of as some strange and totally foreign place -- where Brennan and Kaley happened to be born. This time I leave carrying it in my heart as a place that is precious and familiar and a part of who we all are and will be. I don't think there's another place like it on the face of the earth... and I am so grateful for that.
Hugs -
Lisa & Crew
The kids were not the happiest campers this morning. Since they had their own room I told them that as long as they stayed in it bedtime was up to them last night. When I went to wake them this morning I tripped over extra kids on the floor. I guess they had quite the slumber party. We again had two busses on the way back and the kids had their own bus. From what I hear it was a more melancholy ride than on the way down.
The ride back was long and we didn't get to Phnom Penh until around 1 pm. Saying goodbye at the Golden Gate Hotel proved to be easier than I expected.... because Brennan and Kaley invited all of the other kids over to our hotel! Yoen, our driver came for us in his van and we loaded up a bunch of teenagers and came back to the Phnom Penh Hotel to check in. Of course the other kids were awestruck by our fancy hotel and had lots of comments to make. I reminded them that it was Princess Kaley who really didn't want to share her room with lizards again.
Jim & Derek stayed at the hotel and 6 Khmer teenagers and I headed off to the Russian market with Yoen. For once, Yoen was willing to let me go in the market on my own! I think he was intimidated by all of these kids, too! We mostly went to the CD & DVD booths and the kids picked up some more of those $2 DVD's. They already had Bewitched. Amazing. I met a nice family from Canada who were very curious about all of these English speaking Khmer kids I was running around with. If I thought we'd drawn the beggars before, this took the cake. Big white woman roaming through market with English speaking Khmer kids surely has enough to give us, right? Funny thing is some of the beggars now recognized me and asked where my "friends" were meaning Jim and Derek. I was wearing a "Believe" rubber band bracelet throughout the trip sent to me by a friend, and one of the little beggar boys was fingering it and asking me in English what it said. "Believe" I said. "What that mean?" he asked. I used the simplest words I could think of and told him that it means to always have hope that God is taking care of you and something better will happen in the future. "Oh," he said, "I like!" I slipped off the bracelet and gave it to him and his face lit up like a Christmas tree. Really sweet. All of the other kids we were with were adopted at a later age and are much braver about food. They were buying really funky stuff to eat in the market (one young man Vitha was walking around gnawing on a duck!) and Kaley and I in particular just watched with horror!
We then headed to the riverfront and picked up the ring Kaley had designed. It is very pretty and suits here well. Hopefully it will be something that she will treasure. Then it was back to the hotel and the pool. By the time all was said and done there were 9 Khmer adoptee teenagers happily splashing away and the hotel staff standing around with their mouths hanging open. Too funny.
When the other parents swung by to pick up the kids just a little while ago I went from being "good mom" to "mean mom" because I wouldn't let B & K go back to the other hotel with them. It was time for goodbye as hard as it was. Actually, it wasn't as hard as I expected because even though the kids live so far apart there was truly a "see you later" feel to their goodbyes. They will keep in touch via email and have promised to return to build houses again. Oy vey. I'm gonna have to save my pennies!!
I was very emotional when I thanked Jan, the Tabitha Director and Melita, the Australian woman who organized this particular housebuilding project. Our first week in Cambodia, while interesting and seeing the Nannies was awesome, I think the kids felt like we could have been in any third world country. We could have been in Mexico or the Dominican Republic again for all they could tell. But being with these other adoptees, hanging out with the Khmer Tabitha staff members, and getting out into the villages to meet the people established a very real connection for them to Cambodia and its people. I have seen in the past two weeks that through and through Brennan and Kaley are as American as I am, but I think that they now have a pride in their Khmer heritage that was simply not available to them before. As we turned away from tearfully waving goodbye to their friends, Brennan said to me, "This was awesome. It was so much better than I thought it would be. It was really great mom." BIG BIG LUMP IN MOM'S THROAT!!!!
We have quieted down now and all seems forgiven for my making them stay here at the hotel tonight. They are down in the poolroom shooting pool. This has become quite an obsession for them as it is BIG in Cambodia and Asia. I'm going to try to sort through mountains of clothes and suitcases and consolidate what we will need for the next couple of days. There are rumors that we have all brought some small black bugs back from Sihanoukville with us in our suitcases.... so I'm not real thrilled at the idea of opening them. But after yesterday's frog incident.... I guess I can handle it.
Tomorrow morning we will leave the hotel at 7:30 for the airport. At about 9:30 we have a one hour flight to Siem Reap. This is the center of the ancient Khmer temples and considered one of the wonders of the world. It is also where the movie Tombraider was filmed and where Angelina Jolie adopted her son Maddox and has built a house. The driver we have scheduled to meet us was a translator during the filming. We will have most of the day tomorrow to tour and then most of the next day since our flight to Bangkok isn't until evening. I'm not really sure how many temples we will want to visit. I'm afraid I've started to have the sense that "If you've seen one temple, you've seen them all" over the past days even though that isn't very fair. I do know that in Siem Reap I want the kids to have an elephant ride up the side of one of the pyramid like temples and we're going to an Apsara dance show in the evening. Should be cool.
But before that, we will wave at the Nutrition Center, drive to the airport, say goodbye to our friend Yoen, and say goodbye to Phnom Penh. Phnom Penh - a city that I left so gladly 14 years ago and thought of as some strange and totally foreign place -- where Brennan and Kaley happened to be born. This time I leave carrying it in my heart as a place that is precious and familiar and a part of who we all are and will be. I don't think there's another place like it on the face of the earth... and I am so grateful for that.
Hugs -
Lisa & Crew
Friday, July 8, 2005
Day 13
Well, I'm pretty much speechless (believe it or not!) but I figured I'd better get something up here to let you all know that we're OK.
I must share one funny story before I forget. We were told not to make a fuss no matter what because it upsets Khmer people. If you hit yourself with a hammer, just be quit about it. This morning when I went to put on my shoes, which had sat out to dry, something squished under my bare foot and when I looked in my shoe there was a frog. I let out a yelp like the Khmer staff have probably never heard before! I then slapped my hand over my mouth thinking I was going to get in trouble. Instead they all found it EXTREMELY funny that the big American lady had a frog in her shoe! Yuck. :-) What's the saying... "eat a frog for breakfast and nothing worse can happen the rest of the day..." Well from now on finding a frog in my shoe is NOT the way I choose to start my day. Thank goodness it wasn't a spider or I'd be dead of a coronary right now!
You know, every now and then in life you get something right. Tonight in this part of Cambodia it is raining horribly yet again and the wind is blowing ferociously. But eight families, eight sets of parents and at least 40 children are sleeping dry under the roofs and within the walls of their new homes. And our gifts and our sweat made it happen. That's good and that's right.
Tonight in our hotel, Brennan and Kaley are dancing and enjoying the company of their new Cambodian friends... some of whom are adoptees like them, some of whom are Khmer people who work with the housebuilding project. They have been learning the Apsara traditional style of dancing and teaching the Khmers hip hop dancing. It has been amazing to watch, and it has been the right thing. I, along with Jim and our friend Derek, have been privileged to just be along for the ride.
Tomorrow will be a hard day. Brennan and Kaley will say goodbye to their new friends, and we will be packing our bags and preparing to say goodbye to Phnom Penh. Both will be very hard, I'm sure.
There will be time another day to show you more photos of the housebuilding and to tell you more, but for tonight that's all I have to say except for thanks....
Thanks to our friends at the Seminary who have made it possible for us to have this much time away to make such an amazing journey...
Thanks to Cliff for appreciating the need for Brennan and Kaley to make this journey and being supportive of the idea...
Thanks to Jim for being willing to spend a boat load of our money to make this trip happen....
Thanks to all of you for your love and prayers that have kept us safe on this journey. We've been in Southeast Asia for all this time and so far (knock on wood!) none of us has even had so much as a stomach cramp. Watching the news here (although there isn't much of it) I'm struck that we could have gone to a "safe" place for vacation, like London, with devastating consequences. The world is not as safe as we would like to believe anywhere, but we have been blessed with safe travels and amazing moments so thanks to all of you for your thoughts and prayers.
Hugs,
Lisa & Crew
Lisa & Crew
Thursday, July 7, 2005
Day 12
Well, today was the day. After nearly a year of planning we were going on the housebuilding. We woke up early to be on the bus at 6 am. Fried rice, noodles, eggs, etc. were the breakfast of choice. I had bread. Yes, it's getting to be a habit. The kids are going to miss these massive breakfasts when we get home.
Our destination was a village about an hour and fifteen minutes from where we stayed in Sihanoukville. The kids rode one bus and the adults another. The plan was for the kids to build two houses with the Tabitha staff members and the adults would build the other two. (Tomorrow we were to build four more for a total of eight.) Families chosen to have a house built are already members of Tabitha's savings program where they work with Khmer counselor staff to establish a program where they save a small bit of money each month and have a plan in place for what to use the savings for. The homes are very modest - about a 14 by 14 square up on stilts with wood floor, walls, open hole windows, and a tin roof. To us, it would be like living in a tree fort but to these families it is heaven.
The day was once again overcast and when we had been on the road about a half hour the skies opened and it rained. Poured. Typhoon lagoon. We had planned for horrible heat and bugs, but to be honest I don't think we had thought about what it would be like to work in driving rain.
We pulled down a side road and drove through open fields of rice patties. It looked like something from a book or movie with the oxen walking slowly along the fields and the mist rising from the rice patties. The rain had stopped by the time we arrived. I was surprised to see "the village." I wouldn't have described it as such. It was a handful of huts, some thatched grass, some wooden similar to what we would be building, literally in the middle of rice patties. As we got off the bus Khmer men, women, and children gathered. Clearly they're not used to seeing westerners and they spoke no English. Thank you knows no language barrier however as they put their hands together and bowed to us in sincere appreciation.
The kids walked more to the back of the rice patties to begin their work and the adults tacked two homes near the front. One of the homes we built was for a family with 12 children ranging in age from an infant to a 16 year old I think they said. All of the families had at least four children. The kids were beautiful and clearly fascinated by us.... but we followed the "don't touch the baby because they'll try to give them to you" rule. Their present homes ranged from one shack like structure made of grass and branches to a structure that was nothing more than a lean to the size of a small pup tent. These people have absolutely nothing and their soul purpose in life is finding and providing food enough to survive. But unlike the children in the city, there are no beggars. This is a very basic simple life and the families are proud.
The Khmer Tabitha staff had been on site before us for several days and had erected the beams for the houses and the tin roof was in place. Floor boards were layed across the beams but not nailed. We were to nail the floor boards and put in the walls. I emerged as a floor expert. Jim's specialty was walls. I learned to swing a mean hammer today. I also learned that dollar store hammers suck. Wish I had brought better ones. (And yes, we did need hammers.) When I snuck over to spy on the kids I saw that Brennan was doing walls, too, and Kaley appeared to be doing a bit of everything, especially board carrying.
When we first began working it was still very overcast but not raining. The air was very heavy. I had no idea how much I was able to perspire. OK, it wasn't perspiration, it was sweat. :-) Brennan, being the true Khmer that he is, was wearing a hooded sweatshirt. Yikes. We were all wearing long pants and long sleeves due to the mosquitoes. During mandatory water break we were required to get our heads doused with rainwater from rain barrels and drink a bottle of water. After about an hour of work, the rain came back. There was no stopping on the job, and the villagers continued to stand around in the pouring rain to watch us. The men in each family joined right in and helped. They were clearly very proud and wanted to do as much as they could to help build their new homes. They learned quickly and were very useful to have around. One of the hardest things for me was walking through the rice patties. You had to sort of pick your route around the puddles and the more it rained the deeper they got. In places there were narrow boards that you could walk across, if you didn't want to slosh through mud up to your ankles. I did better on the boards than I would have thought. The alternative provided me with a strong incentive to stay on the boards. :-)
When I went to take some photos of the kid's team while it was raining I saw Brennan working outside on the ladder. The Khmer family that he was building for had brought a traditional Asian straw hat from their hut and placed it on his head to keep him dry. He looked very natural standing there on that ladder. He was also closely followed by a beautiful young Khmer woman named Taevy who lives in Kentucky. She and her adoptive mom are the only other Americans in the group. Her mom has lived in Cambodia on and off and worked for the UN. She is now a professor in Kentucky. Taevy seems to think Brennan is pretty cool. Very cute.... he'd be mad at me for writing this.
Despite the rain we made great time and by our 11 am lunch break the adults had two houses complete. We stopped for bread, peanutbutter, fruit, cheese, etc. After lunch the adults started on their third house. Jim was working on the side walls and working very quickly when suddenly he became very overheated and dizzy. He was our only heat stroke casualty of the day. Woosy American man. I would have been right there with him but I had done a better job of pacing myself. Even though the sun isn't shining and we got cooled off by the rain from time to time the heat is pretty overwhelming. After some water and being fanned by Australian women he felt much better. :-)
At about 2 pm we called it a day and soaked and extremely muddy we boarded the busses to head back to the hotel. I honestly don't think I have ever been so dirty in my life. My clothes are already in the garbage bin. As we drove away we saw that at least one of the families had already moved into their new home and had closed the door to keep out the rain, perhaps for the first time in their lives. Tonight they will be sleep dry, no matter how hard it rains.
Tomorrow we do it again. Since we finished 5 houses we only have 3 left so it will be a short building day. In case it is sunny and hot we will be very grateful for that. At the conclusion of the building there is a ceremony where the families are "given" their homes. There are no keys, no mortgages... just a simple expression of giving and receiving in its purest form. I don't know how the kids are emotionally processing it because I find it hard myself. Therefore but by grace of God go we....
Tonight we are back at the hotel and it is still gray. No beach today. Kaley is running around with girls who except for the fact that they speak with Australian accents and have Cambodian faces could pass for her friends back home. She seems to be having a blast. Brennan will be hanging out with his soccer (or as they call it - football) playing guy friends and trying not to pick up that Australian accent. And of course, Taevy isn't far behind. They haven't said much about what this whole experience has "meant", but I know they are impacted by it. Although they are homesick, I think that the next couple of days of saying goodbye to their new Cambodian friends, and even Cambodia itself, will be difficult. I know that I have always felt like I left a piece of my heart here in Cambodia when I was here before and this time will be no different. This nation, so ravaged by war and trauma, filled with a people of such joy and friendliness is hard not to fall for.
Well, tomorrow is another day. Hope all is well with all of you. We miss you.
Hugs -
Lisa & Crew
Wednesday, July 6, 2005
Day 11
Well, before I talk about today's big "road trip", let me say a couple more words about last night. Jim and I took a tuk-tuk down to the river to try out what we heard was the cities fastest internet cafe. We were warned that it was more expensive... a dollar an hour! Sounded OK to us! If you've been reading along you know that the cafe worked and we were able to catch up. Still haven't had luck with posting photos I'm sorry to say. And I think Jim has taken about a thousand. We'll bore you all with those later.
Anyway, once we successfully made our way back to the hotel via the tuk-tuk, we were feeling brave and gathered Brennan and Kaley to go back downtown via tuk-tuk once again to have dinner. We went to a Chinese restaurant right on the river. It was really an interesting place. It was on an open balcony on the second floor, and we were greeted by a lot of young teens working there... very well groomed and cleanly dressed boys and girls who scurried like you've never seen anyone scurry before. The place was very clean, the service friendly and efficient and the food was good. We skipped the sparrow platter, though. One funny thing... Kaley ordered a ginger ale and they brought her an entire bottle of gin! We laughed and sent it back and she switched to 7 Up. We journeyed safely back to the hotel on a tuk-tuk once again and they enjoyed the rest of the evening with their new Australian Cambodian friends.
This morning we were up early to pack up and leave Phnom Penh. We travelled in two small busses - one with the teens and one with the "old folks." The trip was about 4.5 hours total. After about two hours we stopped at a rest stop. It was very interesting. Poor Kaley had to go -- and it had Asian style squat toilets. I'm really proud of how well they have done coping with such stuff. Having the other teens who have done the housebuilding before set the example really helps. While at the housebuilding the next two days we'll just have to squat behind a screen in the field... so we'd better all get used to it. Personally, I'm shooting for minor dehydration so that I don't have to go all day!
Travelling across the country was interesting. We headed south to Sihanoukville which is a coastal town on the Gulf of Thailand. We drove through very dry flat areas and hilly lush green areas. Most of the way there were huts and small villages lining the two lane paved highway. An occasional cow or oxen would wander across the road.
Sihanoukville is a very interesting town. It's the only coastal resort that Cambodia has but it hasn't been developed very well. It has a very seedy look to it. Actually it is seedy and is one of the centers of Cambodia where pedophiles come to "have a holiday." Disgusting. Driving through the little town I was getting pretty nervous. It looked pretty rough. Fortunately we drove through town and out the other side to the beach area. Our hotel, The Seaside, isn't too bad. No elevators, four stories, clean rooms. It has a reputation for not allowing sex tourists to stay here. It is across the road from the beach. You have to be careful crossing the road -- you may be hit by a wandering ox. You have to watch where you step, too.
We headed to lunch in the hotel restaurant, and while the service was slow, the food was excellent. Lots of fresh seafood. I had prawns, although a lot of people were eating squid. Yuck. After lunch the kids hit the beach. It had been raining the past few days and the sea was rough. Some of the kids got in up to their knees, but Brennan and Kaley were content to play football on the beach with some other kids.
Once again as soon as I walked on to the beach I was swarmed with children. There's something about being a big white woman that says, "Come beg from me!" These kids weren't beggars, however, they had goods to sell. They were selling sarongs, beaded bracelets, fruit, and other stuff. The amazing thing was that they spoke excellent English. They told us they needed the money to go to English school so that they could get good jobs. They must be doing well in English school because they spoke about as well as I've heard anyone speak here in Cambodia. They were very cute and charming. I told them I would buy some stuff tomorrow and they made me pinky swear with them! Squid are really big here. You can buy fresh fried or barbecued right there on the beach. No thanks.
I went to the market with some of the other parents to pick up food for our lunches. It is a seedier market than in Phnom Penh. We were each assigned an item to look for and purchase. I was assigned lettuce. I didn't do so well. I ended up with a couple of handfuls of leaf lettuce but all of the rest looked rotten. Oh well. I did buy Brennan a soccer ball to kick around on the beach for $2 and some new headsets for his mp3 for 50 cents. Strangest thing I saw was a whole section of dog grooming products. We've seen lots of dogs here, but I don't think any of them have used the grooming products lately! Saw fake designer sunglasses like we saw in NYC for $2 a pair instead of $10. Oh well. The money system is so strange here. They have their own currency, but all of the prices are given in US dollars and that's what everyone wants. But they don't use coins - so the Khmer currency is pretty much only used to replace coinage change for the US dollars. While we were at the market a monsoon like rain came up. The market is covered with tin and plastic awnings and I thought it was going to blow down. Sort of freaky. And of course there were beggars in the market.... and of course they followed me around.
Back at the hotel now the kids are running around with the other kids. There are about a dozen young teenagers, all adopted from Cambodia, and a few Australian born teens who are siblings of the Khmer adoptees. Bren and Kaley have never really had an opportunity to "hang out" with other Cambodian adoptees so this is really a neat experience for them. Brennan is worried that he is going to pick up and Australian accent. We all might. I find them hard to understand at times, but I do love the accent. The kids have already been exchanging emails and planning to keep in touch so it will be nice to have some Australian friends to perhaps visit someday!
It's still raining outside so hopefully everyone will be willing to turn in early to go to bed. We will be leaving the hotel at around 7:30 am to travel about 1.5 hours to Kompong Som and the village where we will be building houses. We hope to build 8 houses over the next two days. There are only 6 adult men in our group, about a dozen adult women, about 15 teenagers, and a couple of younger kids. Should be very interesting. The temperature isn't bad today because of the rain... hopefully tomorrow it will cooperate, too.
Hugs -
Lisa & Crew
Anyway, once we successfully made our way back to the hotel via the tuk-tuk, we were feeling brave and gathered Brennan and Kaley to go back downtown via tuk-tuk once again to have dinner. We went to a Chinese restaurant right on the river. It was really an interesting place. It was on an open balcony on the second floor, and we were greeted by a lot of young teens working there... very well groomed and cleanly dressed boys and girls who scurried like you've never seen anyone scurry before. The place was very clean, the service friendly and efficient and the food was good. We skipped the sparrow platter, though. One funny thing... Kaley ordered a ginger ale and they brought her an entire bottle of gin! We laughed and sent it back and she switched to 7 Up. We journeyed safely back to the hotel on a tuk-tuk once again and they enjoyed the rest of the evening with their new Australian Cambodian friends.
This morning we were up early to pack up and leave Phnom Penh. We travelled in two small busses - one with the teens and one with the "old folks." The trip was about 4.5 hours total. After about two hours we stopped at a rest stop. It was very interesting. Poor Kaley had to go -- and it had Asian style squat toilets. I'm really proud of how well they have done coping with such stuff. Having the other teens who have done the housebuilding before set the example really helps. While at the housebuilding the next two days we'll just have to squat behind a screen in the field... so we'd better all get used to it. Personally, I'm shooting for minor dehydration so that I don't have to go all day!
Travelling across the country was interesting. We headed south to Sihanoukville which is a coastal town on the Gulf of Thailand. We drove through very dry flat areas and hilly lush green areas. Most of the way there were huts and small villages lining the two lane paved highway. An occasional cow or oxen would wander across the road.
Sihanoukville is a very interesting town. It's the only coastal resort that Cambodia has but it hasn't been developed very well. It has a very seedy look to it. Actually it is seedy and is one of the centers of Cambodia where pedophiles come to "have a holiday." Disgusting. Driving through the little town I was getting pretty nervous. It looked pretty rough. Fortunately we drove through town and out the other side to the beach area. Our hotel, The Seaside, isn't too bad. No elevators, four stories, clean rooms. It has a reputation for not allowing sex tourists to stay here. It is across the road from the beach. You have to be careful crossing the road -- you may be hit by a wandering ox. You have to watch where you step, too.
We headed to lunch in the hotel restaurant, and while the service was slow, the food was excellent. Lots of fresh seafood. I had prawns, although a lot of people were eating squid. Yuck. After lunch the kids hit the beach. It had been raining the past few days and the sea was rough. Some of the kids got in up to their knees, but Brennan and Kaley were content to play football on the beach with some other kids.
Once again as soon as I walked on to the beach I was swarmed with children. There's something about being a big white woman that says, "Come beg from me!" These kids weren't beggars, however, they had goods to sell. They were selling sarongs, beaded bracelets, fruit, and other stuff. The amazing thing was that they spoke excellent English. They told us they needed the money to go to English school so that they could get good jobs. They must be doing well in English school because they spoke about as well as I've heard anyone speak here in Cambodia. They were very cute and charming. I told them I would buy some stuff tomorrow and they made me pinky swear with them! Squid are really big here. You can buy fresh fried or barbecued right there on the beach. No thanks.
I went to the market with some of the other parents to pick up food for our lunches. It is a seedier market than in Phnom Penh. We were each assigned an item to look for and purchase. I was assigned lettuce. I didn't do so well. I ended up with a couple of handfuls of leaf lettuce but all of the rest looked rotten. Oh well. I did buy Brennan a soccer ball to kick around on the beach for $2 and some new headsets for his mp3 for 50 cents. Strangest thing I saw was a whole section of dog grooming products. We've seen lots of dogs here, but I don't think any of them have used the grooming products lately! Saw fake designer sunglasses like we saw in NYC for $2 a pair instead of $10. Oh well. The money system is so strange here. They have their own currency, but all of the prices are given in US dollars and that's what everyone wants. But they don't use coins - so the Khmer currency is pretty much only used to replace coinage change for the US dollars. While we were at the market a monsoon like rain came up. The market is covered with tin and plastic awnings and I thought it was going to blow down. Sort of freaky. And of course there were beggars in the market.... and of course they followed me around.
Back at the hotel now the kids are running around with the other kids. There are about a dozen young teenagers, all adopted from Cambodia, and a few Australian born teens who are siblings of the Khmer adoptees. Bren and Kaley have never really had an opportunity to "hang out" with other Cambodian adoptees so this is really a neat experience for them. Brennan is worried that he is going to pick up and Australian accent. We all might. I find them hard to understand at times, but I do love the accent. The kids have already been exchanging emails and planning to keep in touch so it will be nice to have some Australian friends to perhaps visit someday!
It's still raining outside so hopefully everyone will be willing to turn in early to go to bed. We will be leaving the hotel at around 7:30 am to travel about 1.5 hours to Kompong Som and the village where we will be building houses. We hope to build 8 houses over the next two days. There are only 6 adult men in our group, about a dozen adult women, about 15 teenagers, and a couple of younger kids. Should be very interesting. The temperature isn't bad today because of the rain... hopefully tomorrow it will cooperate, too.
Hugs -
Lisa & Crew
Tuesday, July 5, 2005
Day 10
July 6, 2005
Hi everyone!
So in yesterday's entry did I mention the gecko's in the hotel rooms in our new hotel? Well, despite the reptile roommates we had a pretty good night. The kids made friends with the other teen adoptees and the geckos didn't seem to matter anymore. This morning we got up and Jim and the kids went downstairs for breakfast in the dining room. They said there were eggs, pancakes, rice soup, and the usual Cambodian breakfast delicacies. No smoked fish and cheese for Brennan though. I was upstairs having a panic attack because I hid my money too well. But after a few tense moments I found it. Hidden in a sock in my suitcase. :-)
We left by shuttle bus to the headquarters for Tabitha Cambodia which is a place where locals are hired to do crafts which are then sold in their store and over the internet. Beautiful silk pieces... even bedspreads. Wish I had more room to take stuff home. We then had "orientation" with Jan, the Director. She is a strong willed Canadian woman who has been working with non-profits in Cambodia since 1992. She's in her 60's I would guess. She gave a mini-history of Cambodia (from her perspective.) She was rather harsh on the US involvement over the years, but perhaps that is fair. She feels that knowing Cambodian history is necessary to understand the Khmer people as we go out to do the housebuilding. For example, because the Khmer Rouge killed everyone with glasses (assuming only intellectuals and educated people would need glasses) people in Cambodia even today who need glasses are often reluctant to where them. During the Khmer Rouge regime all records were destroyed.... birth certificates, real estate documents, etc., etc., so home ownership has come very slowly, especially to those living in villages. She also laid down the law for our housebuilding. The villagers will not understand our generosity and our work, even though they are thrilled to have a home. Therefore, we are NOT allowed to hold babies, because the villagers will wonder what we want in payment and if we hold the babies they will assume we want the babies. We were told that there is to be no touching between the sexes in public. We were told not to share our western style lunch (bread, cheese, soda) with the villagers because chances are it will make them sick and they will believe that we have given them evil spirits and then refuse to move into the houses. She said that they have two houses right now that villagers refuse to live in because this happened. We SHOULD smile and laugh a lot as we build, interact with the children by singing songs and playing games like duck, duck, goose. We SHOULD stop and participate immediately in mandatory water breaks in order to avoid heat stroke. The lecture went on for an hour and a half and it was overwhelming. I think we all wondered what we had gotten ourselves into!
Jan also talked a lot about first coming to Cambodia in 1992 and how bad it was and how much of the country was still ruled by Khmer Rouge, etc., etc. I just sat there quietly thinking... hmmmm... we were here in 1991? Nobody told us this stuff!!
When we left Tabitha, Brennan & Kaley went with the other teens to the home of one of the Tabitha workers who lives in Cambodia. Later in the day they were going to a pool at a local school. It was sort of weird to see them go off with so many Khmer people, but I knew they were in good hands and needed to interact with the other kids. When we walked outside, there was dear Yoen waiting for us with the van. We had left it that if we had the afternoon free we would call him and he would come.... but there he was.
Jim was hoping to find a new camcorder battery charger to replace one we had burned out so this became our quest. Yoen took us to a couple of camera shops that wanted big bucks for one - $110 or $165. Given that they were selling the camera for around $350 that seemed crazy. So he took us to Central Market - which is like a big overwhelming flea market and lo and behold we found them. Jim bought two for $45. And they work! I bought a few more trinkets. Beggars followed us around as usual. It is so hard to just turn away. One boy followed me around with a fan that he waved over my head the whole time. He earned a small tip. :-) A couple of other boys followed Jim around and danced for him. They still didn't get anything. :-)
Battery search successful we stopped for lunch again at Java Cafe for good salads and bread. Yoen then took us to another little shop where handicapped Khmers sell their wares. Since we hadn't visited Wat Phnom, which is a park right in the middle of the town, we decided to make a stop. There is an elephant there that you can ride. Yes, it's the same elephant as in 1991! We didn't ride but we got lots of pictures and I got as close as I care to be to such a large beast. There were also many monkeys hanging around in the park being fed bits of fruit and nuts. They are strange looking creatures. Lots of families hanging around - lots of water fountains that seemed to be used for bathing by street people. I think the beggars here were the worst that we have experienced. It was very difficult. Lots of amputees who have lost limbs from the land mines... lots of hungry old women... lots of children.... but worst of all were the children carrying the babies on their backs. A couple of times I looked carefully to make sure that there weren't any other beggars in site an slipped a small note to the girls with the babies. It really is about as heartbreaking a sight that you could see.
The US is building a huge spanking new fancy embassy right next to this park. Even though the park has become a tough location full of homeless and beggars, this area is still prime real estate because it is smack in the middle of the city. I wondered why we, the US, would need to be dropping a ton of money clearly to build a large and opulent looking embassy building in this location. Derek pointed out that an optimist would say that this our way of telling the Cambodian people that we are very committed to them, while a pessimist would say that this is our way of saying we are big, powerful and rich so don't mess with us. I guess that's a question that we really can't answer. But it is rather interesting and will be quite the beautiful and well protected embassy when it is finished.
By the way.... I didn't mention that today was hot. Really hot. We may have sweated off about 10 pounds each. I know that I sweat absolute buckets. Yuck. Should make for an interesting housebuilding experience.
Yoen dropped us at the hotel an we said our goodbyes for now. He will pick us up once again when we return from the housebuilding. Jim and I hitched a ride with a fellow housebuilder to an Internet cafe and in moments we will head back to the hotel in a tuk tuk. In the rain. I can hardly wait.
The kids are running around the hotel with their new "friends." I'm glad they're having fun. Tomorrow morning we board the bus for the 2 hour ride to Sihanoukville on the coast. I'm not sure I'll find a connection there but I'll try. If you don't hear from us assume all is well.
Hope all is well with all of you. Hugs - Lisa & Crew
Hi everyone!
So in yesterday's entry did I mention the gecko's in the hotel rooms in our new hotel? Well, despite the reptile roommates we had a pretty good night. The kids made friends with the other teen adoptees and the geckos didn't seem to matter anymore. This morning we got up and Jim and the kids went downstairs for breakfast in the dining room. They said there were eggs, pancakes, rice soup, and the usual Cambodian breakfast delicacies. No smoked fish and cheese for Brennan though. I was upstairs having a panic attack because I hid my money too well. But after a few tense moments I found it. Hidden in a sock in my suitcase. :-)
We left by shuttle bus to the headquarters for Tabitha Cambodia which is a place where locals are hired to do crafts which are then sold in their store and over the internet. Beautiful silk pieces... even bedspreads. Wish I had more room to take stuff home. We then had "orientation" with Jan, the Director. She is a strong willed Canadian woman who has been working with non-profits in Cambodia since 1992. She's in her 60's I would guess. She gave a mini-history of Cambodia (from her perspective.) She was rather harsh on the US involvement over the years, but perhaps that is fair. She feels that knowing Cambodian history is necessary to understand the Khmer people as we go out to do the housebuilding. For example, because the Khmer Rouge killed everyone with glasses (assuming only intellectuals and educated people would need glasses) people in Cambodia even today who need glasses are often reluctant to where them. During the Khmer Rouge regime all records were destroyed.... birth certificates, real estate documents, etc., etc., so home ownership has come very slowly, especially to those living in villages. She also laid down the law for our housebuilding. The villagers will not understand our generosity and our work, even though they are thrilled to have a home. Therefore, we are NOT allowed to hold babies, because the villagers will wonder what we want in payment and if we hold the babies they will assume we want the babies. We were told that there is to be no touching between the sexes in public. We were told not to share our western style lunch (bread, cheese, soda) with the villagers because chances are it will make them sick and they will believe that we have given them evil spirits and then refuse to move into the houses. She said that they have two houses right now that villagers refuse to live in because this happened. We SHOULD smile and laugh a lot as we build, interact with the children by singing songs and playing games like duck, duck, goose. We SHOULD stop and participate immediately in mandatory water breaks in order to avoid heat stroke. The lecture went on for an hour and a half and it was overwhelming. I think we all wondered what we had gotten ourselves into!
Jan also talked a lot about first coming to Cambodia in 1992 and how bad it was and how much of the country was still ruled by Khmer Rouge, etc., etc. I just sat there quietly thinking... hmmmm... we were here in 1991? Nobody told us this stuff!!
When we left Tabitha, Brennan & Kaley went with the other teens to the home of one of the Tabitha workers who lives in Cambodia. Later in the day they were going to a pool at a local school. It was sort of weird to see them go off with so many Khmer people, but I knew they were in good hands and needed to interact with the other kids. When we walked outside, there was dear Yoen waiting for us with the van. We had left it that if we had the afternoon free we would call him and he would come.... but there he was.
Jim was hoping to find a new camcorder battery charger to replace one we had burned out so this became our quest. Yoen took us to a couple of camera shops that wanted big bucks for one - $110 or $165. Given that they were selling the camera for around $350 that seemed crazy. So he took us to Central Market - which is like a big overwhelming flea market and lo and behold we found them. Jim bought two for $45. And they work! I bought a few more trinkets. Beggars followed us around as usual. It is so hard to just turn away. One boy followed me around with a fan that he waved over my head the whole time. He earned a small tip. :-) A couple of other boys followed Jim around and danced for him. They still didn't get anything. :-)
Battery search successful we stopped for lunch again at Java Cafe for good salads and bread. Yoen then took us to another little shop where handicapped Khmers sell their wares. Since we hadn't visited Wat Phnom, which is a park right in the middle of the town, we decided to make a stop. There is an elephant there that you can ride. Yes, it's the same elephant as in 1991! We didn't ride but we got lots of pictures and I got as close as I care to be to such a large beast. There were also many monkeys hanging around in the park being fed bits of fruit and nuts. They are strange looking creatures. Lots of families hanging around - lots of water fountains that seemed to be used for bathing by street people. I think the beggars here were the worst that we have experienced. It was very difficult. Lots of amputees who have lost limbs from the land mines... lots of hungry old women... lots of children.... but worst of all were the children carrying the babies on their backs. A couple of times I looked carefully to make sure that there weren't any other beggars in site an slipped a small note to the girls with the babies. It really is about as heartbreaking a sight that you could see.
The US is building a huge spanking new fancy embassy right next to this park. Even though the park has become a tough location full of homeless and beggars, this area is still prime real estate because it is smack in the middle of the city. I wondered why we, the US, would need to be dropping a ton of money clearly to build a large and opulent looking embassy building in this location. Derek pointed out that an optimist would say that this our way of telling the Cambodian people that we are very committed to them, while a pessimist would say that this is our way of saying we are big, powerful and rich so don't mess with us. I guess that's a question that we really can't answer. But it is rather interesting and will be quite the beautiful and well protected embassy when it is finished.
By the way.... I didn't mention that today was hot. Really hot. We may have sweated off about 10 pounds each. I know that I sweat absolute buckets. Yuck. Should make for an interesting housebuilding experience.
Yoen dropped us at the hotel an we said our goodbyes for now. He will pick us up once again when we return from the housebuilding. Jim and I hitched a ride with a fellow housebuilder to an Internet cafe and in moments we will head back to the hotel in a tuk tuk. In the rain. I can hardly wait.
The kids are running around the hotel with their new "friends." I'm glad they're having fun. Tomorrow morning we board the bus for the 2 hour ride to Sihanoukville on the coast. I'm not sure I'll find a connection there but I'll try. If you don't hear from us assume all is well.
Hope all is well with all of you. Hugs - Lisa & Crew
Monday, July 4, 2005
Day 9
Happy 4th of July everyone! We have had an interesting 4th to say the least. Once again today seemed about a week long. I'll try to remember some highlights. I'm sorry we haven't had luck with posting photos. We've got some great onces and maybe once we get home we'll have to add the online photo albums because it just takes too long to upload from here. Oh well...
This morning we packed up and left the Cambodiana. No love lost on that hotel for us, despite the sentimental attachments. As we were leaving, I grabbed the small photo book I brought along and walked down to the street where the cyclo drivers gather. These guys are among the poorest supporters of the tourist industry in Cambodia as they peddle tourists around town in basket type seats on the front of bicycles for about a quarter a ride. Some now have new "family size" cyclos that are more like little carriages but many look like they're driving the same contraptions we rode in in 1991. As I showed the photo of "my" cyclo driver to some of them, one guy exclaimed excitedly "Oh he dead... but I know you! Your friend! Your friend!" And then he pointed himself out to me in one of my photos... and there was no missing that it was him, darkened even further from every day spent in the sun, and aged significantly.... but it was him. Marcy - it was your driver! And he remembered me, and "friend" and Dara. "Dara" now stands as tall as he does and he enjoyed pinching his muscles. It was a fun moment. I slipped him some money and we headed on our way. I couldn't believe that all these years later he is still driving a cyclo from almost the very spot where he was back then. Fun for us, but sad when you think about it.
Yoen drove us to our new "home" for the next two nights which is right in the center of downtown. The Golden Gate Hotel. Let's put it this way... our room is only $25 per night. It's a clean tourist class hotel that a lot of non-profit groups use when they're in town to do housebuildings and stuff like we're going to do. The rooms are very simple. They remind me very much of where Marcy & I and the other parents stayed in 1991. We quickly dropped of our bags (and Brennan and Kaley's eyes got really big when they realized we would be climbing a lot of stairs!) and then headed out with Yoen for our day.
This morning we were visiting The Sharing Foundations programs in the village of Roteang. The Sharing Foundation was founded by this wonderful retired pediatrician who is on a mission to help the people of Cambodia... at least as many as she can. The organization has an orphanage, a school, a sewing workshop, a farm, and other projects in a small village called Roteang about a half hour drive from Phnom Penh. The facilities are truly state of the art and very different from what we saw at the Nutrition Center. Dr. Hendrie herself was in town and gave us the tour. What a neat lady. She spends one month out of every three here in Cambodia checking up on her projects. As she says, "When you're 73, this beats bowling and bingo anyday!" The Nutrition Center where Brennan and Kaley are from is a state run facility and really pretty depressing. There's very little that we can do from home to "help" the Nutrition Center, either, because there is so much corruption in the state run programs You send money and it doesn't help the kids. I know that the Sharing Foundation's programs are well run and I thought a visit while we were here would give us some ideas as to how we might be able to continue to support the children of Cambodia.
The orphanage, school, and other projects were clean, well run, and the kids were happy and very well cared for. The pre-school class sang and performed the hokey pokey for us in English. Very cute! Sadly, even here about 25% of the kids have HIV. But they are doing so well on their HIV cocktail that you couldn't begin to point out who these kids are. Our last stop was at the village school and Dr. Hendrie told us goodbye and headed back to Phnom Penh... and Yoen's van overheated! For about the next 45 minutes, he, Jim and Derek worked on the van while Brennan and Kaley and I were surrounded by more and more village children. I had a bottle of bubbles in my purse and once the kids got the idea that they could chase them and pop them we had a great time. I don't think they had ever seen bubbles before. These kids clearly live very simple lives but weren't begging in any way like some of the kids we have encountered over the past few days. What could have been a really bad situation turned into a really special hour for us.
From there we went and had lunch at the Foreign Correspondents Club once again. As we got out of the van, one of the side windows broke and shattered all over the place. Once again, the Americans drew quite an audience as we tried to help clean up. We had a leisurely lunch, with plenty of time for a couple of rounds of pool (very big in Cambodia!) and then we set off on some errands.
First on the list was delivering the baby formula we had purchased to the Nutrition Center and saying our goodbyes. I think for Brennan and Kaley it is just sort of strange to have the nannies fuss over them so much and be sad to see them go, but for me it was nearly as emotional as it was 14 years ago. These women live such difficult lives and are paid so poorly for taking care of these children. Over the years they have allowed themselves to truly love many of their babies, only to lose them to adoptive families across the oceans, HIV, or other diseases. They can't read or write - so keeping in touch is virtually impossible, short of sending photos or a word through another traveller to Cambodia. So goodbye really is goodbye.... and their grief is real. But still, sharing their joy over the past few brief visits has been wonderful. They didn't know we were coming.... probably hadn't given these kids a thought in years because they never expected to see them again.... when suddenly unexpected and unannounced we walk back into their world and they get to see how healthy, and beautiful, and grown up their babies have become. That was magic... at least for me.
After the Nutrition Center we headed to the outskirts of town where car parts are sold to try to find a new window for Yoen. We wanted to buy it for him, knowing that replacing the window would probably cost him all that we had paid him all week. We finally found one for $50 -- he will have to have it installed later but we were glad to find it. Again, we caused quite a stir everywhere we went. I guess tourists don't got to auto parts stalls very often. t was an interesting experience to see how hard it is to purchase such a simple thing that you very much needed in this country. Having the money didn't really matter. There just weren't any windows to be had!
Yoen then wanted to show us his home which is in a new development (suburbia) on the outskirts of town. He is very much middle class, probably upper, by Cambodian standards but he lives a very simple life. Brennan enjoyed playing soccer with some of the kids on their street while Kaley once again blew bubbles for the little ones. No language barriers there!
We left Yoen's at around 6:30 (after Jim & Derek helped him fix his computer!) and headed for the Golden Gate. When Kaley and I walked in her room, a gecko (chameleon) scurried across the wall. Needless to say, she freaked in a very quiet way. Seeing everything they have seen over the past few days, they are still totally freaked out at sharing a hotel room with a lizard! Life could be much worse! They are VERY Americanized.
We went to the rooftop to meet the rest of the housebuilders, all of whom are from Australia. Nice people, and about a dozen or so adopted Cambodian teens. I think this will be a very interesting experience for all of us in many ways. Tomorrow morning at 8:30 am we go to training and then on Wednesday morning we head by bus out into the provinces.
I've thought a few times today about this being the 4th of July. It's not lost on any of us how different our lives are from those we have met here. How is it our fate to live in the US and enjoy so many privileges and blessings??????? We are so very fortunate. Enjoy your day everyone, light a sparkler for us, eat a hotdog (that's not really a dog...) and thank God for the blessings that we enjoy.
Hugs -
Lisa
This morning we packed up and left the Cambodiana. No love lost on that hotel for us, despite the sentimental attachments. As we were leaving, I grabbed the small photo book I brought along and walked down to the street where the cyclo drivers gather. These guys are among the poorest supporters of the tourist industry in Cambodia as they peddle tourists around town in basket type seats on the front of bicycles for about a quarter a ride. Some now have new "family size" cyclos that are more like little carriages but many look like they're driving the same contraptions we rode in in 1991. As I showed the photo of "my" cyclo driver to some of them, one guy exclaimed excitedly "Oh he dead... but I know you! Your friend! Your friend!" And then he pointed himself out to me in one of my photos... and there was no missing that it was him, darkened even further from every day spent in the sun, and aged significantly.... but it was him. Marcy - it was your driver! And he remembered me, and "friend" and Dara. "Dara" now stands as tall as he does and he enjoyed pinching his muscles. It was a fun moment. I slipped him some money and we headed on our way. I couldn't believe that all these years later he is still driving a cyclo from almost the very spot where he was back then. Fun for us, but sad when you think about it.
Yoen drove us to our new "home" for the next two nights which is right in the center of downtown. The Golden Gate Hotel. Let's put it this way... our room is only $25 per night. It's a clean tourist class hotel that a lot of non-profit groups use when they're in town to do housebuildings and stuff like we're going to do. The rooms are very simple. They remind me very much of where Marcy & I and the other parents stayed in 1991. We quickly dropped of our bags (and Brennan and Kaley's eyes got really big when they realized we would be climbing a lot of stairs!) and then headed out with Yoen for our day.
This morning we were visiting The Sharing Foundations programs in the village of Roteang. The Sharing Foundation was founded by this wonderful retired pediatrician who is on a mission to help the people of Cambodia... at least as many as she can. The organization has an orphanage, a school, a sewing workshop, a farm, and other projects in a small village called Roteang about a half hour drive from Phnom Penh. The facilities are truly state of the art and very different from what we saw at the Nutrition Center. Dr. Hendrie herself was in town and gave us the tour. What a neat lady. She spends one month out of every three here in Cambodia checking up on her projects. As she says, "When you're 73, this beats bowling and bingo anyday!" The Nutrition Center where Brennan and Kaley are from is a state run facility and really pretty depressing. There's very little that we can do from home to "help" the Nutrition Center, either, because there is so much corruption in the state run programs You send money and it doesn't help the kids. I know that the Sharing Foundation's programs are well run and I thought a visit while we were here would give us some ideas as to how we might be able to continue to support the children of Cambodia.
The orphanage, school, and other projects were clean, well run, and the kids were happy and very well cared for. The pre-school class sang and performed the hokey pokey for us in English. Very cute! Sadly, even here about 25% of the kids have HIV. But they are doing so well on their HIV cocktail that you couldn't begin to point out who these kids are. Our last stop was at the village school and Dr. Hendrie told us goodbye and headed back to Phnom Penh... and Yoen's van overheated! For about the next 45 minutes, he, Jim and Derek worked on the van while Brennan and Kaley and I were surrounded by more and more village children. I had a bottle of bubbles in my purse and once the kids got the idea that they could chase them and pop them we had a great time. I don't think they had ever seen bubbles before. These kids clearly live very simple lives but weren't begging in any way like some of the kids we have encountered over the past few days. What could have been a really bad situation turned into a really special hour for us.
From there we went and had lunch at the Foreign Correspondents Club once again. As we got out of the van, one of the side windows broke and shattered all over the place. Once again, the Americans drew quite an audience as we tried to help clean up. We had a leisurely lunch, with plenty of time for a couple of rounds of pool (very big in Cambodia!) and then we set off on some errands.
First on the list was delivering the baby formula we had purchased to the Nutrition Center and saying our goodbyes. I think for Brennan and Kaley it is just sort of strange to have the nannies fuss over them so much and be sad to see them go, but for me it was nearly as emotional as it was 14 years ago. These women live such difficult lives and are paid so poorly for taking care of these children. Over the years they have allowed themselves to truly love many of their babies, only to lose them to adoptive families across the oceans, HIV, or other diseases. They can't read or write - so keeping in touch is virtually impossible, short of sending photos or a word through another traveller to Cambodia. So goodbye really is goodbye.... and their grief is real. But still, sharing their joy over the past few brief visits has been wonderful. They didn't know we were coming.... probably hadn't given these kids a thought in years because they never expected to see them again.... when suddenly unexpected and unannounced we walk back into their world and they get to see how healthy, and beautiful, and grown up their babies have become. That was magic... at least for me.
After the Nutrition Center we headed to the outskirts of town where car parts are sold to try to find a new window for Yoen. We wanted to buy it for him, knowing that replacing the window would probably cost him all that we had paid him all week. We finally found one for $50 -- he will have to have it installed later but we were glad to find it. Again, we caused quite a stir everywhere we went. I guess tourists don't got to auto parts stalls very often. t was an interesting experience to see how hard it is to purchase such a simple thing that you very much needed in this country. Having the money didn't really matter. There just weren't any windows to be had!
Yoen then wanted to show us his home which is in a new development (suburbia) on the outskirts of town. He is very much middle class, probably upper, by Cambodian standards but he lives a very simple life. Brennan enjoyed playing soccer with some of the kids on their street while Kaley once again blew bubbles for the little ones. No language barriers there!
We left Yoen's at around 6:30 (after Jim & Derek helped him fix his computer!) and headed for the Golden Gate. When Kaley and I walked in her room, a gecko (chameleon) scurried across the wall. Needless to say, she freaked in a very quiet way. Seeing everything they have seen over the past few days, they are still totally freaked out at sharing a hotel room with a lizard! Life could be much worse! They are VERY Americanized.
We went to the rooftop to meet the rest of the housebuilders, all of whom are from Australia. Nice people, and about a dozen or so adopted Cambodian teens. I think this will be a very interesting experience for all of us in many ways. Tomorrow morning at 8:30 am we go to training and then on Wednesday morning we head by bus out into the provinces.
I've thought a few times today about this being the 4th of July. It's not lost on any of us how different our lives are from those we have met here. How is it our fate to live in the US and enjoy so many privileges and blessings??????? We are so very fortunate. Enjoy your day everyone, light a sparkler for us, eat a hotdog (that's not really a dog...) and thank God for the blessings that we enjoy.
Hugs -
Lisa
Sunday, July 3, 2005
Day 8
Funny things keep coming back to me. My travelling companions from 1991 (Hi Marcy & Deb!) will know what I'm talking about. Sundays in Phnom Penh are boring. I had forgotten that. I do remember that on Sundays they would bring an elephant to Wat Phnom (the central park in the city) and you could take elephant rides, but besides that Sundays went slowly because all of the offices were closed and our agency liaisons never came round. I hadn't thought about that in years, but today reminded me that Sunday's in Phnom Penh can be slow. Although the markets are busy and shops are open, it is not appropriate to visit orphanages or mission agencies on Sundays and all government offices are closed. So we were left to entertain ourselves today.
Today was Brennan's 15th birthday. We got up and went downstairs for breakfast. Same sort of buffet as in the last hotel. Kaley got her soup, I got my French bread.... and Brennan ate it all. Dr. Atkins would have been proud of Brennan's main breakfast item today. He discovered that he liked the grilled fish that was on the buffet rolled up in swiss cheese... and he ate a ton of it. It smelled awful but he seemed quite happy.
After breakfast Yoen picked us up to finally make it to Toel Sleng. I had thought about trying to go to a church service this morning as I'm sure that would have been an interesting experience, but Yoen didn't seem very familiar with the times or locations. I remember in 1991 that the city really seemed void of Christianity.... and at least to the casual visitor that still seems to be the case There are many more monks than there were back then, and Buddhism seems to be very widely practiced, but the only other signs of religion that we have stumbled across were Jehovah's Witnesses in the market (boy did they stick out!) and a Mormon Church building. I know that there are missionaries here (the Seminary has had students visit on several occasions) but a visible Christian presence still seems lacking here.
As for Toel Sleng.... what a very sad place and a very bizarre experience. This was a school that the Khmer Rouge took over and used as a torture and processing center from 1975 - 1979. Particularly educated persons, along with their children, were brought here for interrogation and torture before being transported to the killing fields for execution. Pol Pot's regime carefully documented each person who passed through with a number and photograph. Several of the buildings contain a few of these thousands of photos of men, women, and children. Unlike the concentration camps in Germany, very little has been done to "preserve" or "commercialize" Toel Sleng. The buildings are in pretty much the same shape they were in when the Vietnamese liberation of Cambodia took place in 1979. Ankle shackles are still strewn about, and patches of what appears to be old dried blood are on the floor, the walls, and the ceilings through some of the buildings. Unlike most historical sites visitors are free to roam and some of the walls are now marked by graffiti, some of which is offensive and some of which beautifully reflects upon the genocide. A movie is shown at 10 am and 3 pm but it was poorly projected and almost impossible to hear. One can't help but feel the sadness in this place. Yoen our driver said that no matter how often he goes it is hard. He lost his father and sister during the Khmer Rouge regime and clearly still harbors deep feelings.
Toel Sleng left me with the same sort of "confusion" that I have experienced in what we have seen and experienced here. A place of remembrance that should be holy ground is covered with litter and is being not so slowly destroyed by its visitors. A nice little coffee shop serving western style sandwiches and frequented by relief workers, ambassadors, and tourists looks out over an alley way where men, women, and children will drop their drawers and pee right there in the street. That new shopping mall that I wrote about yesterday is literally around the corner from an unpaved street totally buried in garbage where children and old women dig for food scraps. Bizarre is an understatement.
After Toel Sleng we stopped by that coffee shop called Java and had a nice lunch. I decided I want to either be an ambassador or work with an NGO (non government organization that provides aid programs.) These folks get to work in really interesting places and seem to have a lot of time to spend sitting in coffee shops. After lunch we "ran errands" with Yoen. We stopped at a sports shop so that Brennan could look at soccer shoes but he wasn't sure if they were real. He hasn't caught his sister's appreciation for knock-off items. Adidas and Nike soccer shoes (or football shoes as they're called here) for around $7.50. We stopped by an electric shop to buy some adapters for our various plugs before we move on to a more remote location. Next stop was back to one of the big markets to buy some baby formula to drop off at the Nutrition Center. The markets are so overwhelming with sights, sounds and smells. And so many beggars. I vowed not to give to any more beggars after my last experience, but this tiny little skinny very old looking woman followed me around and I reached into my purse and pulled out a package of peanut butter crackers which she gladly accepted. Not sure that was what she had in mind but it's what she got. There were several booths of knock-off designer purses that caught Kaley's eye. They put the prices in NYC for knockoffs to shame. Forget Canal Street, ladies. Go to Cambodia. Chris- if you're reading this - we thought of you and thought maybe we could pick up a Louis dog bag for Abbie really cheap. Motioning to one of the larger bags I asked the people at one of the booths if they had any dog bags. When they gave me a confused look, I used one of my few words of Khmer and said, "chi-guy bag?" (That's phonetic spelling for dog, folks.) They all about rolled on the ground laughing and finally one guy said, "Chi-guy poop in bag. No chi-guy in bag!" Probably a very good point. Sorry - no chi-guy bag for Abbie.
We stopped in an optical shop to look at sunglasses (again designer knock offs) and they had a wide selection of prescription frames that look like frames we would get at home. I asked how much and learned that for a pair similar to Kaley's prescription glasses it would run about $50. Funny how some things are so much cheaper and others so much more expensive. We walked around the market a bit more so that Jim could get some photos of the weird food. Stir fried cockroaches, anyone?
By then it was raining so we headed back to the hotel. I went to the bakery to get a cake for Brennan. How much did the cake cost in 1991, Deb? I paid $24 today for a chocolate cake and I think that's about what you paid back then! Rather than leave the hotel in the rain we ate in the Italian restaurant, which is really a few tables set up by the pool. Pizzas and calzones were OK. Getting drinks was a challenge as it has been since we moved to this hotel. I'm still very surprised at how bad the service is here. Very aloof and nonchalant attitude that was not present at all at the last hotel. If you'll be visiting Cambodia soon, cross the Cambodiana off your list.
Tomorrow we move on again and go the Golden Gate Hotel to hook up with the rest of the housebuilding team. The kids, Jim, and Derek have a theory that I am slowly weaning them away from their comfort zone -- starting out in a really nice hotel, moving to one that was just so-so, and tomorrow we move on to the $20 a night tourist hotel. Should be very interesting. We're also going to visit another orphanage, this one run by an American pediatrician and said to be a "model" facility, and making one more visit to the Nutrition Center to deliver baby formula. Then in the evening we'll meet the housebuilding people.
I think we're ready to move on to the housebuilding activities. There's really only so much to see and do here in Phnom Penh and with the rain today we're all a little stir crazy. Hope all is well with all of you.
Hugs -
Lisa & Crew
Today was Brennan's 15th birthday. We got up and went downstairs for breakfast. Same sort of buffet as in the last hotel. Kaley got her soup, I got my French bread.... and Brennan ate it all. Dr. Atkins would have been proud of Brennan's main breakfast item today. He discovered that he liked the grilled fish that was on the buffet rolled up in swiss cheese... and he ate a ton of it. It smelled awful but he seemed quite happy.
After breakfast Yoen picked us up to finally make it to Toel Sleng. I had thought about trying to go to a church service this morning as I'm sure that would have been an interesting experience, but Yoen didn't seem very familiar with the times or locations. I remember in 1991 that the city really seemed void of Christianity.... and at least to the casual visitor that still seems to be the case There are many more monks than there were back then, and Buddhism seems to be very widely practiced, but the only other signs of religion that we have stumbled across were Jehovah's Witnesses in the market (boy did they stick out!) and a Mormon Church building. I know that there are missionaries here (the Seminary has had students visit on several occasions) but a visible Christian presence still seems lacking here.
As for Toel Sleng.... what a very sad place and a very bizarre experience. This was a school that the Khmer Rouge took over and used as a torture and processing center from 1975 - 1979. Particularly educated persons, along with their children, were brought here for interrogation and torture before being transported to the killing fields for execution. Pol Pot's regime carefully documented each person who passed through with a number and photograph. Several of the buildings contain a few of these thousands of photos of men, women, and children. Unlike the concentration camps in Germany, very little has been done to "preserve" or "commercialize" Toel Sleng. The buildings are in pretty much the same shape they were in when the Vietnamese liberation of Cambodia took place in 1979. Ankle shackles are still strewn about, and patches of what appears to be old dried blood are on the floor, the walls, and the ceilings through some of the buildings. Unlike most historical sites visitors are free to roam and some of the walls are now marked by graffiti, some of which is offensive and some of which beautifully reflects upon the genocide. A movie is shown at 10 am and 3 pm but it was poorly projected and almost impossible to hear. One can't help but feel the sadness in this place. Yoen our driver said that no matter how often he goes it is hard. He lost his father and sister during the Khmer Rouge regime and clearly still harbors deep feelings.
Toel Sleng left me with the same sort of "confusion" that I have experienced in what we have seen and experienced here. A place of remembrance that should be holy ground is covered with litter and is being not so slowly destroyed by its visitors. A nice little coffee shop serving western style sandwiches and frequented by relief workers, ambassadors, and tourists looks out over an alley way where men, women, and children will drop their drawers and pee right there in the street. That new shopping mall that I wrote about yesterday is literally around the corner from an unpaved street totally buried in garbage where children and old women dig for food scraps. Bizarre is an understatement.
After Toel Sleng we stopped by that coffee shop called Java and had a nice lunch. I decided I want to either be an ambassador or work with an NGO (non government organization that provides aid programs.) These folks get to work in really interesting places and seem to have a lot of time to spend sitting in coffee shops. After lunch we "ran errands" with Yoen. We stopped at a sports shop so that Brennan could look at soccer shoes but he wasn't sure if they were real. He hasn't caught his sister's appreciation for knock-off items. Adidas and Nike soccer shoes (or football shoes as they're called here) for around $7.50. We stopped by an electric shop to buy some adapters for our various plugs before we move on to a more remote location. Next stop was back to one of the big markets to buy some baby formula to drop off at the Nutrition Center. The markets are so overwhelming with sights, sounds and smells. And so many beggars. I vowed not to give to any more beggars after my last experience, but this tiny little skinny very old looking woman followed me around and I reached into my purse and pulled out a package of peanut butter crackers which she gladly accepted. Not sure that was what she had in mind but it's what she got. There were several booths of knock-off designer purses that caught Kaley's eye. They put the prices in NYC for knockoffs to shame. Forget Canal Street, ladies. Go to Cambodia. Chris- if you're reading this - we thought of you and thought maybe we could pick up a Louis dog bag for Abbie really cheap. Motioning to one of the larger bags I asked the people at one of the booths if they had any dog bags. When they gave me a confused look, I used one of my few words of Khmer and said, "chi-guy bag?" (That's phonetic spelling for dog, folks.) They all about rolled on the ground laughing and finally one guy said, "Chi-guy poop in bag. No chi-guy in bag!" Probably a very good point. Sorry - no chi-guy bag for Abbie.
We stopped in an optical shop to look at sunglasses (again designer knock offs) and they had a wide selection of prescription frames that look like frames we would get at home. I asked how much and learned that for a pair similar to Kaley's prescription glasses it would run about $50. Funny how some things are so much cheaper and others so much more expensive. We walked around the market a bit more so that Jim could get some photos of the weird food. Stir fried cockroaches, anyone?
By then it was raining so we headed back to the hotel. I went to the bakery to get a cake for Brennan. How much did the cake cost in 1991, Deb? I paid $24 today for a chocolate cake and I think that's about what you paid back then! Rather than leave the hotel in the rain we ate in the Italian restaurant, which is really a few tables set up by the pool. Pizzas and calzones were OK. Getting drinks was a challenge as it has been since we moved to this hotel. I'm still very surprised at how bad the service is here. Very aloof and nonchalant attitude that was not present at all at the last hotel. If you'll be visiting Cambodia soon, cross the Cambodiana off your list.
Tomorrow we move on again and go the Golden Gate Hotel to hook up with the rest of the housebuilding team. The kids, Jim, and Derek have a theory that I am slowly weaning them away from their comfort zone -- starting out in a really nice hotel, moving to one that was just so-so, and tomorrow we move on to the $20 a night tourist hotel. Should be very interesting. We're also going to visit another orphanage, this one run by an American pediatrician and said to be a "model" facility, and making one more visit to the Nutrition Center to deliver baby formula. Then in the evening we'll meet the housebuilding people.
I think we're ready to move on to the housebuilding activities. There's really only so much to see and do here in Phnom Penh and with the rain today we're all a little stir crazy. Hope all is well with all of you.
Hugs -
Lisa & Crew
Saturday, July 2, 2005
Day 7
Well, today was not a great day. We were to check out of the Phnom Penh Hotel and move to the Cambodiana. The Cambodiana is a 4 star hotel that has been in Phnom Penh for quite a while. It was here in 1991 and we ate in it frequently but couldn't afford to stay in it! Brennan's first birthday cake came from the Cambodiana (thanks Deb!) and I thought it would be fitting to spend his 15th birthday here.
Yoen was to pick us up at 9:30 to go to Toel Sling, which is the museum of the genocide so that we could see a documentary film at 10 am. He had car trouble and was late so we came straight to the hotel to check in. The hotel has a run down feel to it although it is large and tries to be posh. I think the Phnom Penh was a better hotel and less money. Oh well. Some of the restaurants we ate in here in the hotel before are moved around but I think the pool is in the same place. It looks old and in need of some repair. But there is a lot of activity here along the river where this hotel is so it will be good.
Since we were late for Toel Sling Yoen suggested that we drive a bit out of the city to where we could take a ferry over to an island where everyone who lives there weaves cotton and silk. We drove for about a half hour to the Kompong Thom province I believe it was and took a very dilapidated ferry across to the island. It was hot. Really really hot. I thought today might be the day that we all melt. The island was very interesting. Very simple stilt houses, cows walking around, lots of children calling out "Hello!" but noone seemed to speak English. Yoen asked several people if we could watch them weave and we bought a couple of pieces of fabric mostly to be polite. They are beautiful, however, and I think I paid $1.25 for a beautiful piece of silk. We walked quite a ways down the island to see a temple and monastery and it began to rain pretty hard. As hot as we were the rain felt good. But.... the path down to where the ferry would pick us up this other end of the island was VERY steep and would have been hard to navigate in good weather conditions. By the time the boat arrived to pick us up, it was in bad shape. I was terrified to even try to go down the hill. Kaley tried and slipped -- but since she's coordinated she caught herself by the hands in a crab position and managed to get back up. I began sliding and tried to turn around to come back up but instead I did a header into a muddy hillside. Ouch. Sore elbows, complete mud wipe out and badly bruised dignity. Derek fell next. We were like dominos. Villagers were gathered around to watch the spectacle, pointing and laughing. Not one of my finer moments. We realized that our only choice at that point was to walk back to the original docking location, but what we hadn't noticed was that Brennan had made it down the hill and was on the ferry which was now pulling away to cross the Mekong River! Fortunately, he had the good sense to just stay on the ferry and ride around until he got back to the dock where we were going to get on. He actually looked quite calm, sitting there in his Foothills jersey, MP3 player & headset going. No problem.
We went back to the hotel where we got plenty of stares as we went through the lobby to get to the rooms. By the time we had changed it was too late for Toel Sling yet again. Oh well... tomorrow. It was still raining outside so Yoen suggested that the kids might enjoy the mall. Near the very timeless Central Market there is now an 8 story mall containing all kinds of little shops, bigger shops, and even a food court. We went to the food court for lunch and that was the second disaster of the day. There were no western foods available and to be honest all of the food stations looked pretty questionable to our delicate American tummies. We each drank a coke while Yoen ate soup and other weird stuff. He brought over a bowl of noodles he wanted us to try and it was pretty yucky,. Some kind of rotten fish sauce. We looked briefly in a couple of stores. Jim was looking for another tape for the camcorder. He found the sam battery he bought in Bangkok for $35 for $135 dollars. Prices were bad.... but still, a mall in Phnom Penh. Amazing.
After dropping our laundry at a local laundry where they will wash our clothes, dry them outside and then iron them we stopped briefly at Central Market. Between the rain and the beggars we left fairly quickly.
Yoen dropped us off at the hotel and we decided to spend a quiet evening and eat here. The dining room is just like it was in 1991. We were the only ones in there, too. Sort of weird. Food was MUCH more expensive than in the restaurants on the street and the food was just OK. Nothing to write home about, but I guess I am anyway! It's going to be a long couple of weeks as far as the food goes. We're already getting a bit tired of figuring out what is safe to eat, where to eat, and trying strange foods. Oh well - that's part of the adventure right? But the bright and shiny "Pencil Supermarket" is right across the street and there are always snickers bars over there!
Service here in this hotel is pretty bad, too. I had to call the front desk and let the phone ring about 30 times. I finally ran down thinking that night be better and 3 guys were standing there just talking. I think the hotel caters to Europeans and has adopted the very laid back attitude to go along with that. This area of the riverside is now lined with big hotels, including a huge casino hotel that is still under construction next door.
Phnom Penh is a city of amazing contrasts. You see such incredibly poverty stricken areas, people living very simply who seem very content with their lives, and then those who have attained higher social status driving around in their range rovers. I suppose it is like that anywhere, but the contrasts are very evident and extreme here. The city is so much more crowded and the garbage, beggars, traffic, and noise seem so much more amplified than they were in 1991. Yes, Phnom Penn has a mall, range rovers, fancy hotels, etc.... but they also have a population being devastated by HIV, hunger and poverty on every corner, and incredible struggles for survival. Progress isn't what it's cracked up to be I'm afraid.
Well, enough philosophizing. Like I said, today was sort of a blah day with a series of less than perfect circumstances. Tomorrow will be a better day hopefully and we'll have more funny stories to share. Thanks for reading and your notes & prayers.
Hugs -
Lisa & Crew
Yoen was to pick us up at 9:30 to go to Toel Sling, which is the museum of the genocide so that we could see a documentary film at 10 am. He had car trouble and was late so we came straight to the hotel to check in. The hotel has a run down feel to it although it is large and tries to be posh. I think the Phnom Penh was a better hotel and less money. Oh well. Some of the restaurants we ate in here in the hotel before are moved around but I think the pool is in the same place. It looks old and in need of some repair. But there is a lot of activity here along the river where this hotel is so it will be good.
Since we were late for Toel Sling Yoen suggested that we drive a bit out of the city to where we could take a ferry over to an island where everyone who lives there weaves cotton and silk. We drove for about a half hour to the Kompong Thom province I believe it was and took a very dilapidated ferry across to the island. It was hot. Really really hot. I thought today might be the day that we all melt. The island was very interesting. Very simple stilt houses, cows walking around, lots of children calling out "Hello!" but noone seemed to speak English. Yoen asked several people if we could watch them weave and we bought a couple of pieces of fabric mostly to be polite. They are beautiful, however, and I think I paid $1.25 for a beautiful piece of silk. We walked quite a ways down the island to see a temple and monastery and it began to rain pretty hard. As hot as we were the rain felt good. But.... the path down to where the ferry would pick us up this other end of the island was VERY steep and would have been hard to navigate in good weather conditions. By the time the boat arrived to pick us up, it was in bad shape. I was terrified to even try to go down the hill. Kaley tried and slipped -- but since she's coordinated she caught herself by the hands in a crab position and managed to get back up. I began sliding and tried to turn around to come back up but instead I did a header into a muddy hillside. Ouch. Sore elbows, complete mud wipe out and badly bruised dignity. Derek fell next. We were like dominos. Villagers were gathered around to watch the spectacle, pointing and laughing. Not one of my finer moments. We realized that our only choice at that point was to walk back to the original docking location, but what we hadn't noticed was that Brennan had made it down the hill and was on the ferry which was now pulling away to cross the Mekong River! Fortunately, he had the good sense to just stay on the ferry and ride around until he got back to the dock where we were going to get on. He actually looked quite calm, sitting there in his Foothills jersey, MP3 player & headset going. No problem.
We went back to the hotel where we got plenty of stares as we went through the lobby to get to the rooms. By the time we had changed it was too late for Toel Sling yet again. Oh well... tomorrow. It was still raining outside so Yoen suggested that the kids might enjoy the mall. Near the very timeless Central Market there is now an 8 story mall containing all kinds of little shops, bigger shops, and even a food court. We went to the food court for lunch and that was the second disaster of the day. There were no western foods available and to be honest all of the food stations looked pretty questionable to our delicate American tummies. We each drank a coke while Yoen ate soup and other weird stuff. He brought over a bowl of noodles he wanted us to try and it was pretty yucky,. Some kind of rotten fish sauce. We looked briefly in a couple of stores. Jim was looking for another tape for the camcorder. He found the sam battery he bought in Bangkok for $35 for $135 dollars. Prices were bad.... but still, a mall in Phnom Penh. Amazing.
After dropping our laundry at a local laundry where they will wash our clothes, dry them outside and then iron them we stopped briefly at Central Market. Between the rain and the beggars we left fairly quickly.
Yoen dropped us off at the hotel and we decided to spend a quiet evening and eat here. The dining room is just like it was in 1991. We were the only ones in there, too. Sort of weird. Food was MUCH more expensive than in the restaurants on the street and the food was just OK. Nothing to write home about, but I guess I am anyway! It's going to be a long couple of weeks as far as the food goes. We're already getting a bit tired of figuring out what is safe to eat, where to eat, and trying strange foods. Oh well - that's part of the adventure right? But the bright and shiny "Pencil Supermarket" is right across the street and there are always snickers bars over there!
Service here in this hotel is pretty bad, too. I had to call the front desk and let the phone ring about 30 times. I finally ran down thinking that night be better and 3 guys were standing there just talking. I think the hotel caters to Europeans and has adopted the very laid back attitude to go along with that. This area of the riverside is now lined with big hotels, including a huge casino hotel that is still under construction next door.
Phnom Penh is a city of amazing contrasts. You see such incredibly poverty stricken areas, people living very simply who seem very content with their lives, and then those who have attained higher social status driving around in their range rovers. I suppose it is like that anywhere, but the contrasts are very evident and extreme here. The city is so much more crowded and the garbage, beggars, traffic, and noise seem so much more amplified than they were in 1991. Yes, Phnom Penn has a mall, range rovers, fancy hotels, etc.... but they also have a population being devastated by HIV, hunger and poverty on every corner, and incredible struggles for survival. Progress isn't what it's cracked up to be I'm afraid.
Well, enough philosophizing. Like I said, today was sort of a blah day with a series of less than perfect circumstances. Tomorrow will be a better day hopefully and we'll have more funny stories to share. Thanks for reading and your notes & prayers.
Hugs -
Lisa & Crew
Friday, July 1, 2005
Day 6
It's 11 pm here in Cambodia as I sit down to write. We have had a long full day. The day began with breakfast here in the hotel. They have a very interesting buffet. Kaley enjoyed going to the Japanese noodle bar and having noodle soup prepared freshly for her. Brennan ate some of everything. He has really proven himself to be the experimenter, willing to try anything put in front of him. I don't remember all of what I saw on his plate but I do remember the baked beans and the fried fish patties. Breakfast? Me, I stuck with bread. :-)
After breakfast our driver, Yoen, (pronounced like pittsburghese you'nz without the z on the end!) picked us up and we headed to Mosalvy. This is the government bureau in charge of adoptions. We drove up to a fairly dilapidated concrete building several stories tall and then had to climb several flights of narrow stairs until we reached a door marked "Adoption Bureau." A fairly well dressed and polished Cambodian woman was the only person there. She offered us seats and we sat down together. When Yoen began to tell her in Khmer why we had come she clearly became agitated and the two of them when at it for a while with voices raised. There were many cabinets in the room and thick files piled on top of the cupboards. From the tone of the voices I didn't think we'd be getting a look in those files, however. Yoen finally turned to us and said, "She said she doesn't have any records here. Go back to the Nutrition Center and ask them again." I asked Yoen to tell her that from the bottom of my heart I thank the people of Cambodia for these wonderful children and that they are good children and I just want to do everything I can to help them understand how they came to be adopted. She looked me and the kids up and down and then she and Yoen had another lengthy discussion, but this time it was quieter and not as tense. After a while he turned to us and said, "She says maybe it is not good for you to look. You think their Cambodian family will be happy to see them but really they do not care about them but they will ask you to send money over and over to help them so it is better for you to stop looking right now." We thanked her politely and headed on our way, disappointed by the dead end that we had hit once again.
There's nothing to lighten the mood like a shopping trip so Yoen suggested that we hit the Russian market for a while. This used to be the market where the people would buy their more necessary items, but now it is a mixture of all kinds of things including handicrafts. We spent about an hour in the huge very hot tent catacomb looking at jewelry, silk products, really weird and bizarre foods (how about some stir fried roaches to get your appetite going?) pirated DVD's and CD's. Cambodia has New York beat. DVD's are only $2 as are CD's. Problem was the beggars who followed us everywhere. A mother with her baby, an amputee with no legs who scooted along behind us, a woman badly disfigured from burns, little boys, little girls.... You can't possibly try to help anyone no matter how moved you are because you will be surrounded within seconds by so many others clamoring for help. It's very difficult to experience.
We left the market and headed to the outskirts of the city to a non-profit organization near the garbage dumps. The garbage dumps are the center of the worst poverty in Phnom Penh. Thousands of people live in cardboard boxes waiting for the garbage trucks to arrive each day in order to rummage for food and other items. On the outskirts is an organization that translated from French is called "Smile of a Child." This project serves several thousand children and their families each year, with the goal of keeping families together and improving the lives over time. Children, even babies are able to leave the dumps every day to receive nutritional support, education, and health care. The school for the teenagers is something like a vo-tech school that focuses on the tourist industry. The kids learn how to work in a 4 star hotel, run a kitchen, wait tables, give massages, do hair, etc. There is a restaurant on site and that's where we ate lunch. The service was very attentive and the food was good. (Well, most of it was good. Jim ate some kind of meat roll that he insists was something really freaky.) We had an additional reason for visiting this place. The nanny who first introduced me to Kaley at the Nutrition Center now runs the baby house there. Madame Pok is the smallest woman you'll ever see. Even Kaley looks like a giant beside her. She was VERY glad to see Brennan and Kaley and we promised to return at 3 pm for a visit.
Meanwhile after lunch we headed into the countryside to visit the Killing Fields. These are the remnants of the mass graves where the Khmer Rouge buried 2 million Cambodians between 1975 and 1979. It was a very strange place to visit. You'll travel down this dirt road through little village areas for about a half hour out from town bouncing over HUGE craters and playing chicken with the other cars, trucks, and motorcycles along the way since the road is not two lanes wide. Yoen is a good driver and we've been very fortunate that our sidetrips have gone very smoothly. Anyway, when you get there you see a big monument rising in front of you. It has glass walls, and seven rows of shelves. It stands very tall. Stored in the monument are 8,000 skulls of men, women, and children found at that grave site. As you walk around the field there are still pieces of clothing and bits of bone and teeth working their way up out of the ground. We all commented that we expected the area to have a solemn feeling but there really wasn't. We hired a guide for a few dollars and he walked around with us. His two sisters were both killed at age 12 and 15. He was just a baby but survived somehow. He described in detail had the Khmer Rouge killed all of the professional people (doctors, lawyers, teachers) first in their efforts to create a utopian farm culture. This holocaust wiped out the highest percentage of a population of any holocaust and yet we don't here much about it. It is incredible that so many nations stood by for so long as this happened. The man giving us the tour, and many other Cambodians are still very bitter that Pol Pot, leader of the Khmer Rouge was never brought up on charges through the world court, but instead died of old age a few years ago, still hiding in his jungle compound.
Also at this site were probably about 20 beggar children. They looked truly pathetic. Unhealthy hair, barely clothed, etc. Since there were a limited number of them, I reached in my purse to pull out some Cambodian money to give to each of them. In Cambodian currency right now 4000 rial equals $1 US. They don't have coins it's all paper. So to give a child a 100 rial note isn't really giving them enough to buy a piece of gum! I should never have broken Lisa's rule that says, "don't give money to the beggars" because within seconds I was totally swarmed and they were literally clawing at me for the money. They would grab for the bills and then quickly hide them and deny that I had given them any and ask for more. I realized that these sad children were really very cunning, dishonest and bright as they try to con tourist after tourist in this rural location. Oh well, you live and learn.... but I'm willing to bet that before we leave I'll make the same dumb mistake again.
By 3 pm we were back to Smile of a Child to visit with Mdm. Pok. It was so great to see her. She cried and kissed Brennan and Kaley and thanked me for bringing them to see her. She said she wonders about many of the children often and it is so good to see how big and strong they are. Brennan and Kaley had a great time there in the baby house playing with several of the toddlers. They were clearly well fed and looked healthy even though some are HIV positive. They were also friendly and playful and enjoyed climbing all over all of us. Even Jim & Derek were smitten by these attention seeking little Cambodian cuties.
Mrs. Pok explained that part of why she came to work there was because of the corruption she saw in adoption in Cambodia and she was glad to have this opportunity to work with an organization that tries to support families so that children can grow up with them. Even still, she said some parents are dead or just can't take care of the children at all and she wishes adoption could become possible again. I had an opportunity to show her Brennan and Kaley's documents and ask her if she by any chance knew any more. She was very honest and very sad telling us that in her honest opinion, now that she does not work for the government and the Nutrition Center she felt free to tell me that the documents were fraudulent. She said the birthdates and arrival dates at the Nutrition were always changed so that the babies could be adopted sooner since there was a law that the babies had to be in the orphanage for at least 3 months before they could be adopted in case their birthfamilies came back for them. The fraud in adoption runs very very deep here in Cambodia. Some of it has been innocent and well intended, making it possible for children who would never have had a chance here to have a life in another country. Even still, in order to make the adoption legal it was necessary for the paper trail leading back to families to disappear completely since only orphans are eligible for permanent visa status according to US law. Some of the fraud was not well intentioned as desperately poor birthfamilies in small villages were offered small amounts of money to relinquish their children. Funny thing is some of the same names that I remember from 1991 are names that still are at the heart of the adoption "business" here. As I've tried to explain to Brennan and Kaley over the past day, there comes a point where you just have to let it go... realizing that for whatever reason they came to be at the nutrition center, and somehow we have to believe that it was God's plan for their lives for them to come to the US.
I think we have truly come to the end of the road in searching for records, but at the same time I sense that the questions are being answered without finding their actual birthfamilies. You can't see this poverty here and not understand the thought process of a family that takes a baby to a place where they will be fed and clothed and cared for. Moreover, families see growing up in the US or Europe as being a blessing bestowed only upon the lucky babies. Can a birthfamily possibly want more for their child than for them to be a "lucky baby?" Despite what the woman Molsalvy told us about the birthfamilies not caring, I don't believe that, and I will continue to affirm the theory that Brennan and Kaley's birthfamilies were acting out of unconditional love when they made the choice to let them go. Whereas a child placed for adoption within the US might wonder "Why?" this choice was made for them, I think that it is now painfully and simply clear to Brennan and Kaley why that choice would be made here. And it certainly helps to have nannies who love and remember them and who are clearly thrilled to see them healthy strong young adults. It gives them a connection to their roots, to those who gave them their start in life.
We were already physically and emotionally exhausted but our day wasn't over yet. We had purchased 250 pounds of rice, bunches of bananas, dried fish, eggs, cookies, etc. to deliver to the Nutrition Center... all of which cost less than $50! We took them to the director of the Nutrition Center and visited with some of the nannies again for a few minutes. Yesterday, for whatever weird reason the orphanage seemed empty, but today there were MANY children. In the cottage doorways, profoundly retarded and handicapped children were on the floors and sitting in high chair type contraptions. Beautiful healthy looking toddlers, pre-schoolers, and a few elementary age children were running around the courtyard. One of the nannies pointed at child after child one by one saying, HIV, HIV, HIV, HIV.... It doesn't get much sadder than that. Even sadder, perhaps, is that in 1991 when Brennan & Kaley were adopted there was no HIV in Cambodia. But as the UN, the military, and non-profit groups came in to the country to help re-build it and monitor a democratic election, they brought AIDS with them and spread it like wildfire through the prostitute community. It doesn't take long before it impacted a frightening percentage of the population.
Well, if anyone is still reading after this terribly depressing dialogue, I'll try to finish out our day. We went for dinner at a lovely rooftop restaurant right downtown by the river called the FCC, short for Foreign Correspondents Club. Lots of westerners there eating. Our driver Yoen told us that it would be very expensive but I had heard that it had the cleanest and best western style food in town and we were ready for some COMFORT FOOD by this point in the day. The guys in the group each had a couple of beers, the kids had mocktails, we had a couple of appetizers, pizzas, a couple of desserts, etc. and the bill was still just $66 including tax and tip for all six of us! You can definitely eat pretty cheap in this town. We had a leisurely dinner and it was a good pick me up after our long day.
After dinner Yoen drove us down the street to an area where Kaley could hit a reputable jewelry store and Jim could hit the internet cafe in hopes of a good enough connection to upload yesterday's journal. Kaley was able to design a ring that will be ready before we leave Cambodia. She was very excited about that and I think it will be a great keepsake for her. She is still enjoying her shopping (checking out the trinkets and fake handbags in the markets!) but I've also noticed a transition where she has started asking about what she can leave behind at the orphanage when it is time to go home. I'm happy she decided to design the ring instead of shoes, however, because that will be a keepsake for a very long time.
As for the internet cafe.... well, let's just say it was painfully slow....but very entertaining to watch the monk working on the computer and talking on a cell phone... and Jim using sign language and a lot of arm waving to talk about motorcycles with the mototaxi drivers gathered out front.
Time to sleep. Tomorrow will be another busy day. We're going to the museum of the genocide in the morning and in the afternoon we move to our new hotel by the river. Hopefully the internet will work better there and we can get some pictures up for you all to look at.
Hugs to all -
Lisa & Crew
Thursday, June 30, 2005
Day 5
June 30, 2005
Well, as I sit down to type it is only 3:30 in the afternoon our time, but today feels like it has a month log. Where to start...
We were up at 4:30 to be ready to leave the hotel in Bangkok at 5:30 for the airport. We were to fly to Phnom Penh on Bangkok Airways.... which we only knew was a "small" airline. Of course I was nervous. Check-in was very smooth and polite, and the airline identified itself as "Thailand's Boutique Airline." Hmmm. To board we went on the tarmac and road a bus for quite a while. I was very pleased when we did NOT stop at the tiny plane but instead stopped at an attractive and new looking jet. Although the flight was less than an hour they served a full breakfast, with a main course of eggs with mixed vegetables (peas, carrots, corn) on top. Hmmm. We were busy for the entire flight filling out visa and immigration forms. We arrived before 8:30 am with a whole day ahead of us. As we began our descent into Phnom Penh I realized I had never seen it from the air since we travelled by bus in 1991. It is in a flat area with mountains in the distance. There were lots of green areas but also areas that just looked like dry dry mud.
On arrival we knew we would have to get a tourist visa for $20 US per person. Brennan and Kaley were pulled aside and for $10 were each given a permanent Cambodian visa. That was rather cool. But then at the next step when they went through the another line, the man gave them a hard time about not speaking Khmer. He told them that if they didn't at least pretend that they knew Khmer he would have to take away their visa. So their mission became learning a few words of Khmer. I think he was joking.... but who knows. For the first of what I'm sure will be many times they were told, "You lucky child."
Waiting outside the airport was our new friend, driver, guard, and "make sure noone rips us off man" Yoen Soek. To our surprise he was driving a vw van so we all fit just fine, even our mountain of luggage. As we made our way into the city the first thing I noticed was how much more traffic there is now than in 1991. Lots of cars, vans, and even some big SUV's. Once again the only word I can think of to use to describe the experience is an assault on our senses. There were so many sounds, roaring motorcycles, people speaking loudly in Khmer, horns blaring. You can smell the open fire pits along the sides of the road. There are people everywhere, motorcycles nearly colliding constantly. Dogs, cats, monkeys along the way.
I remember when I was here before thinking I would never figure out the way the streets are laid out... and I still don't think I'll get it. It's like a maze. We turned down a street after Yoen said we were getting close, and there was the hotel where my friend Marcy and I and the other travelling adoptive parents spent our first night in Phnom Penh. It was the huge big old hotel that in its day was very French and glamorous, but when we spent the night there were bats swooping through the hallways and all kinds of creepie crawlies everywhere. We moved to another hotel the next day! Anyway, it was beautifully restored and is now the most expensive hotel in town. Yoen made another turn and I vividly remembered the Nutrition Center, the orphanage where Brennan and Kaley were, being somewhere close to that hotel and that corner. Now keep in mind that I booked the hotel we were going to stay in sight unseen, only knowing that it was fairly new, reasonably priced and in the city somewhere. Beyond that I didn't have a clue where we were going. Well guess what? In a strange twist of fate the hotel was built right next door to the Nutrition Center. Our hotel room windows look out on the place where Brennan and Kaley spent their early months. I couldn't believe it.
Our original plan was to visit the Nutrition Center tomorrow, but since it was thrown right at us, the kids wanted to go. We were taken to the Directors office, who was a woman who has come since 1991. She was very polite and sent another woman out to bring back some others. One by one, three of the nurses who took care of the kids came in to meet them. I really don't have the words to describe those moments. Cambodian people don't show a lot of emotion, so I bit my lip to keep mine in check, too. But I could see tears welling in the eyes of each of those women. They were so impressed with Brennan, whom they called Dara. They wanted to touch his muscles and his chin hairs! They couldn't believe how big he has become. I had brought a small photo album with pictures from our time there in 1991 and they joyfully and loudly looked at it. Eventually Yoen translated for me and said that Kalop (Kaley's) nannies had all retired or worked elsewhere, but they remembered her. When I reversed the two nursery rooms they lived in when pointing out where they had lived, one of the nannies spoke up and corrected me, showing them their right rooms. She even remembered which beds belonged to each of them. It was truly amazing. These women cared deeply for these children and the joy in their faces in seeing them almost grown up was one of the most amazing moments of my life. They remembered me, too. (How could they forget the first big white woman that many of them probably had ever seen back in 1991?) As they came up to us they would greet me warmly and then when I would point to the kids they couldn't believe it. Time goes fast for all of us I guess.
We were offered a tour of the facility but only ended up seeing part of it because the older children were at school and the babies were at lunch. It was a difficult place to be. The children there now mostly have profound handicaps or are HIV positive whose parents have died of AIDS. Hopefully we will get to meet more of the children when we return with supplies on our next visit. There is a fairly new building at the back of the complex that was built by Luciano Pavoratti. I'm not quite sure how he got connected there but that's pretty cool.
Before leaving the orphanage we asked the new director if she would be willing to look in the book for us. I was told on several occasions that each child brought in to the NC was carefully recorded in a book. I was also told that I might need to "offer a gift" for the director looking at the book. This wasn't asked for, but she already knew that we planned to return with supplies. After searching for quite a while, she wasn't able to identify names of babies who fit the information that we were given on Brennan & Kaley. There was a Rath Dara, but the birthdate was nearly a month later than the one we were given. The notes in the book also did not match the abandonment story we had been given before. As for Kaley, again the Kalop identified in the book would have been around 6 months older than the birthdate we were given for Kaley and I can't believe that was her because she was so little and clearly just a baby and not a one year old when I first met her. So.... despite having a chance to check in the book, we are no further ahead than before with this mystery. We will also be going to the ministries, perhaps tomorrow, asking for any records that exist there - but I'm not expecting anything. Even if we don't find anymore, I hope that just being here and seeing the extreme poverty of this country will help B & K to understand why their parents chose the orphanage for them, even if they never know who those parents were specifically. Brennan has always said he wants to know if his birth family would be proud of him -- today he encountered three women who fed him and bathed him and cared for him when he was sick for the first year of his life... and they were extremely proud of him. I hope that feels good for him.
It seemed rather surreal but after this powerful hour or so in the orphanage it was on with our sightseeing. We ate lunch at the Friends Restaurant which is a training facility for former street children and teenagers. The are taught to cook, wait tables, manage a restaurant so that they can become part of the growing tourist industry. The food was good and it was a very pleasant environment.
From there we went on to the National Museum. The museum houses TONS of relics and broken statues and such from the 1100s to the 1800s. Very bizarre pieces - most of which have had their arms broken off. Some of them were huge. No photos allowed unfortunately so I can't show you any of the interesting Buddha. Leaving the museum was very difficult. A number of amputees and beggars gather on the sidewalk knowing that tourists will come out. I learned the hard way in 1991 that you can't just give to one beggar. You will be swarmed and not able to move. I had warned Brennan and Kaley that this was to be our philosophy again -- but it is sooo hard. There was a little girl, couldn't have been more than four, and she was carrying a naked child in a scarf/sling contraption hung around her neck and shoulders with her baby brother who looked to be at least a year old and almost as big as her. The little girls hair was thin and had that reddish cast that tells you that nutrition is lacking. Speaking very softly in Khmer she stuck to my side the whole walk back to the van. Walking away causes you to wrestle with every angel and demon as you try to decide what the "right thing" is to do. I do know that tomorrow I will carry a bag of fruit with me so that I can at least offer such children something to eat. We're here in part to do something about this poverty as we take supplies to orphanage and help with the housebuilding. In my head I know this is the best way to help. But the heart isn't quite so rational when confronted with such a sad sad situation.
Glad to be back in the van, we moved on to the Riverfront where we got out and walked a bit. It was miserably hot though and again we were confronted by vendors and beggars. There were families with little caged birds that they would set free if you gave them $1 as an offering. Lots of people selling warm bottles of water and coke. At 2 pm we made our way across the street (Brennan likened it to playing Frogger on a video game as you have to weave your way over) and visited the Royal Palace compound. It has a very different appearance from the Bangkok Palace. We each had to pay US $3 to get in and an extra $2 fee for Jim's camera. (and he still couldn't take photos inside the temples.) We walked around for an hour or so, looking at pagodas and temples, and realized that we were melting in the heat and decided to give it up although we had only seen about half of the buildings. Heat stroke would probably be a bummer.
So we came back to the hotel, where now it looks like it is time for the daily downpour of rain with lots of wind. Yoen is to pick us up at 6 for dinner. Should be another adventure.
We rode down by the river and had dinner at a sort of open air cafe called Rendes Voux. Food was OK. There were geckos climbing the walls and that put a damper on Kaley's appetite. Brennan had a taco plate, in Cambodia! Kaley had chicken cordon bleu and I had vegetable lasagna. Only problem was one of the vegetables in the lasagna was jalapena peppers! Children trying to sell flowers, books, trinkets came to our table constantly during dinner hoping we would buy something.
We rode down by the river and had dinner at a sort of open air cafe called Rendes Voux. Food was OK. There were geckos climbing the walls and that put a damper on Kaley's appetite. Brennan had a taco plate, in Cambodia! Kaley had chicken cordon bleu and I had vegetable lasagna. Only problem was one of the vegetables in the lasagna was jalapena peppers! Children trying to sell flowers, books, trinkets came to our table constantly during dinner hoping we would buy something.
After dinner we drove down along the river. I always wondered what happened to the little cottages we stayed in in 1991. Now I know. They are gone gone gone and a big Japanese hotel sits in their place. The Cambodiana which was right next to us looks pretty much the same but glitzier. We'll be moving there on Saturday night to stay for a couple of nights. The biggest change is across the street where there is a "Pencil Market." This was a big, clean, bright supermarket type facility that was selling versace cologne in the lobby!! Such a contrast to what you see on the streets. We bought mouthwash, bug spray, and bottled water for very reasonable prices. (Yes there are teeny tiny ants crawling in our bathroom but I'm going to take care of that very shortly!) Kaley and I were waking around looking at things and I realized that there was a gaggle of young cambodian women who were supposed to be working in the store following us around. Finally when we were looking at the bug spray one said to her, "You very pretty and very lucky."
We're now back at the hotel and I've told everyone lights out is at 10 tonight. We are just way too tired. Tomorrow we will hit the markets and I think make our visit to MOSALVY, the government agency that handles adoptions. I'm sure it will be another interesting day.
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