...anddd now we work

Apparently, work days in Cambodia start at 7 in the morning. SEVEN IN THE MORNING. Funny thing is though, they have the longesttttt lunch breaks here--from 11 to 2. Kinda like the European siesta, which works for me. Compared to the US (and Asia), we work wayyy more, but I can't really say that makes life any better. I feel like people enjoy life more in Europe because they're not workaholics like us, but as Marilyn said--"Well, maybe that's why they're not superpowers anymore." True that, but which is better? Hmmm...

What happens when your country lacks the foresight of creating left-turn lanes

So anyway, yesterday was research day, which was half "nooo" because the last two days have definitely been devoted to relaxing and whatnot. But it's also half "yesss" because it's an opportunity to do work that I would never be able to do in the states. I spoke with the man in charge of the DC-Cam's education programs here, Boly, and he gave me some pretty good information and sources to start off with. Once again it's just shocking to realize how few efforts have been taken to properly educate Cambodians about the genocide. After the Vietnamese came and kicked the KR out, for example, they "educated" students about the Khmer Rouge--but that really meant teaching heavily politicized information that justified the extended vietnamese presence in Cambodia. After the Vietnamese left, few efforts were done to comprehensively teach schoolchildren about the genocide; their textbooks give only the most cursory information on the Khmer Rouge and nothing else. Luckily now, with a new Minister of Education, the DC-Cam was able to convince them to adopt a comprehensive education about the Khmer Rouge time period.

I've been trying to tease out the "so what?" about teaching Cambodian schoolchildren about genocide. But after speaking with Boly, it's become a lot clearer the role education plays in truth-telling, reconciliation, and healing. Educating the youth is basically a type of truth-telling, especially in light of the fact that so little of the education thus far has been balanced or thorough. In addition, there's a sort of generation gap between survivors and the youth today; the latter just doesn't understand what survivors have been through and how it's affected their lives (I'm told there'a similar sort of gap between Holocaust survivors). They take their stories and experiences for granted, but only because they don't know enough to really *know*. Part of the DC-Cam's curriculum makes students put themselves in the shoes of survivors, in addition to making them talk to to parents, relatives, and friends about the genocide. In this way, not only can students learn more about the genocide from a primary source, but it's also a way for these parents/relatives/etc to finally tell their stories--another form of truth telling. Having this base then makes reconciliation possible; how can you heal and move on when you don't even know the truth about your society's past? My two cents.

Trying to do any more researching/thinking after stuffing my face with Indian food was not going so well, though. I know I've said that I've been feeling like a boundless source of energy, but not so much after break. I feel...pooped. I want to blame it on a food coma because jet lag hasn't gotten to me all this trip. The schizophrenic weather probably isn't helping me much either. It was sunny and humid, as usual. Then it got cloudy (but still humid--you can't escape that). Then it started POURING for about 30 minutes...then it stopped. Really Cambodia?

During our lunch break we hit up the Russian Market, which really isn't Russian--it's just a big indoor market. INDOOR--you can imagine how stuffy and hot it is in there?! But it's just endless amounts of the same thing, over and over again, pretty touristy stuff. I bought some gifts anyway and have been trying to work on this whole bargaining thing. The stuff I bought started at $5, I was able to get it down to $3-$4, which is probably not good enough. But I feel like an asshole for starting the prices too low haha. I was trying to buy a something for a friend, and after going back and forth for a little, I straight up told the lady, "Okay, $3.50 or I'm leaving." She took it for $3.50. I need to learn how to be more of an asshole I guess. I also found some of the snake and scorpion wine that this area is known for, but unfortunately the ones here were just for show.

Thanks a lot Mother Nature

Random aside, I've collected wonderful mosquito bites so far. They look worse in real life. Red and angry and itchy of course...I guess 1) I'm great mosquito food and 2) I don't react well to mosquito bites. They're making my legs feel like bricks, which is fairly uncomfortable. And weird thing--last night I woke up with a terrible cramp in my right leg. I hope it has nothing to do with the bites and is me just spazzing out. I want to come back to the US with my legs in tact and functional...

beached whale on the mekong

Bubblessss!

Sunday Funday was not destined to happen, though we were able to get a little taste of Phnom Penh's nightlife. We weren't even sure where to go in the first place--Lonely Planet listed like 15 places--so Francis asked the front desk staff at the hotel. Their response? "We can take you there on the motorbike, we can have fun, and then take you back." Yeah, we'll skip.

Eventually we settled on the Riverfront Something-or-Another, which was chill, but nothing really happening. So then we ended up checking out Heart of Darkness (ha ha ha...I hated that book), which I kinda had reservations about going to in the first place because Lonely Planet was telling us it was a hangout for the rich and spoiled Cambodian elite. It wasn't so bad when we checked it out, but we talked to Professor Path about it in the morning and he basically told us it was part coke den part brothel so ummm...awesome!

Sad thing I noticed about this place is the sex tourism that's clearly going on. Tooooooo many washed-up middle-aged men walking around with Cambodian chicks young enough to be their daughters. There's just not as much opportunity as there is in the US here; the women are doing this because they don't have too many other options to make good money.

Moo

Besides that...I guess it was probably better that nothing much was going on last night, simply because yesterday was a longgg day. Got up at 7:30, breakfast, then hour boat ride to a silk village outside of Phnom Penh. During then I was able to get about ten shades darker sitting up on top of the boat--it was fantastic. Equally fantastic was being able to get a taste of the more rural side of Cambodia. I think I read that 85% of Cambodians (or some other large percentage) still lives in the countryside anyway. Bought some beautiful silk scarves as gifts, and for myself of course :p After that we just explored the village. It was blisteringly hot. And I think I'm just genetically predisposed to sweat like a monster--I mean, I was sitting in the shade and was still literally dripping sweat. No one else was sweating nearly as much as I was. Nasty nasty nasty.

An hour boat ride later and we were at Danny Vong's resort-in-the-making. We were greeted with a super memorable lunch. We were on a floating platform along the Mekong, eating in the traditional Cambodian style with our hands and all. Delicious. And I know that eating with your hands generally means it will be messier than usual, but I think I was just an absolute mess at lunch. I hope no one cared. So that's two for me: profuse sweater and extremely messy eater...great.

Everything is good about this

After stuffing my face, it was time to take a dip in the Mekong. At this point I am seriously like a beached whale. Just fat. I don't normally sit there and complain about how fat I am, but really...beached whale. I wasn't even eating well in the couple of days leading up to this trip (dim sum, 2 huge tamales, big plate of BBQ were some of the things I had before leaving...), and this is all just rubbing it in. Other than that, it felt so surreal swimming about in the Mekong--it's also my first time swimming in freshwater. Of all places to have that first. We were worried about strange tropical parasites and whatnot festering in the waters, but so far I'm okay. I'm gonna say we had a good dip in the river yesterday.

On the boat ride back I just totally had one of those zen moments, though. At this point the sun was fading so it wasn't nearly as hot, plus the wind picked up so the heat was bearable. I decided to dry off by sitting up top, alone, and it was just...nice. At one point this fishing boat drove by and it was filled with kids, and they were all smiling and waving and yelling "Hello!" at our boat. Cutest thing! I could go for more moments like that. Afterwards, I talked to one of the guys who works at the DC-Cam. He told me they're working on an encyclopedia of sorts documenting the 2 million plus people that were killed in in the genocide, including a brief story on them. Can you imagine having to compile that much information? It's just mind-boggling. Respect.

Every kid here is sooo cute and soo funny...I'm in love

For dinner we went to a neat-o restaurant called Friends. Cheesy title but it's a restaurant for a great cause--they basically take kids off the street and educate and employ them to work in the restaurant to keep them out of trouble. What was nice was that the water, ice, and vegetables were safe to eat--they made that clear in the menu. Things like that sound great when you're in a country where cleanliness is not the top priority. Oh, and once again--beached whale. I was still full from lunch, but how could I resist more good food for dinner?

Random aside, but somehow I've been able to stay very awake and energetic throughout this whole trip. I'm not really sure how I'm managing it, but I hope it lasts.

chum reap suor (hello!)

14 hour flight to Taipei--2 hour layover--2 or 3 hour flight to Phnom Penh--I'm finally here!

Can I just say it's really hot and humid here? As in, I'm sitting in my hotel room, with the AC on full blast and the fan running, and I'm still sweating like crazy. I am resigned to that fact that we will all be sweaty and disgusting this whole trip. And no one will be allowed to judge each other. I haven't even brushed my teeth since I left the states. Or showered. But I'm going to be disgusting either way so why care so much?

Besides that, arriving in Phnom Penh was a pretty swank. We were greeted at the gate by a former survivor who works with our professor, then we were handed Cambodian leis of some sort, which was pretty much the icing on the cake. It's nice to have welcomes like that and it gave us a chance to practice our Cambodian greetings (which kinda failed, but whatever).

It felt like heaven to take a dip into the pool at the hotel afterwards. I don't really know how they disinfect their pool--I didn't get a chlorine scent at all from it--but so far I'm still alive, so I'm not going to complain. As for the hotel itself...well, it could be better, could be worse. There's no safe in here which bothers me, but funny story...I left the room in a hurry to go to dinner today, and had my wallet with two $50 bills sticking out of it on the bed. I thought, in the back of my mind, maybe it wasn't a good idea to leave it out--but I figured, why would room service come so late in the day? Well, they did, and I came back from dinner today to find the $50 missing. I freaked out...but turns out they just put it back in my wallet. So this hotel wins for honest service.

Dinner itself was not bad--we had some semi-authentic Cambodian food. Though I'm going to say the one thing that I've noticed about beef in other countries is that the quality just isn't as good as the US. I was trying to eat the beef today and it was like...chewing on rubber. And oh--frog really does taste like chicken. I was also told that I eat well--I'm not sure what that means, especially because there were other people who were eating just as much and the same things as I was. But I'll take it as a compliment...I guess. (I have a feeling I am going to get very, very fat on this trip)

After all of this it's hard to think that I am actually here for work. Tomorrow is another off day where we're apparently riding around on a boat and visiting an island the aforementioned survivor owns. What is this, like a Cambodian Oprah?! But I've definitely been thinking about what to write about, and it's coming to me more after discussing with the head of the Documentation Center of Cambodia (DC-Cam), Youk Chhang. I basically wanted to focus on the education as it pertains to the genocide--how much people know now, why do they know so little, why has education been delayed, what is being done now, and most importantly--why is educating current generations about the KR so important? But I've narrowed it down significantly after some suggestions that Youk threw out. So instead, I'm going to study how students were taught about the KR between 1979 and 1989 by looking through textbooks and interviewing people from the time period. From there I'm going to go into the bigger picture of education, why it matters, etc, but this at least gives me a better focus than just...well, education.