Some Unfortunate News.

Yesterday morning, my family was robbed. My mom went to the market a little before eight and in the time it took for her to do the day’s shopping, everything of value was taken from the house: money, jewelry, important documents, my older brother’s computer, etc. The doors were all locked, so the robbers took an axe to a panel of the wooden door at the back of the house, squeezed through the opening, and went to work: rifling through dressers and drawers, folding back mattresses, and generally searching the place up and down. When I first got to site, I noticed that if you pulled hard enough on my locked door, it would open, so I told my Khmer dad who immediately replaced it with a sturdier, metal one. Because of this, my room was the only room in the house not broken into.

As all of this was unfolding, I was teaching at school and so blissfully unaware. I pulled up to my house at 11 AM, my mind going over my Valentine’s lesson for my younger students later, and was immediately pulled out of my thoughts by the 35 or so people gathered on the terrace and in the house. The first thing my dad said to me was, “Don’t worry, nothing of yours was taken.” This confused me, but after being ushered inside and seeing things strewn about, the door and the missing panel, I started to connect the dots. My Khmer mom sat on a bed in the living room, crying: “They took everything.” I had NO IDEA what to do at this point. What to say, or how to say it appropriately. So I just sat next to my mom and rubbed her back and hoped she could sense I thought it was okay for her to cry, and it didn’t embarrass me. Khmer are not too big on displays of emotion, and multiple times I heard a few of the men tell my mom not to cry- not in a mean way, it’s just a communal belief here that it’s best to keep emotion inside- so I hope she interpreted my hand on her shoulder as a “go ahead and let it out” kind of a thing…. Anyway, we sat like that for a while.

Inevitably, I feel a sense of responsibility for what happened. Despite what friends and even my Khmer family have tried to assure me, I feel like had I not been living with this family, they would not have been robbed. Having a foreigner living with them is a HUGE liability; everyone assumes that I have money, and things of value, which in the greater context of things I suppose is true. This morning, I told my dad I’d like to contribute something financially, since I feel in part responsible for what happened. “Ought-de!” (No way!) he immediately responded, shaking his head vigorously. “You are like a daughter to me. I want you to feel safe here. More than the things that were lost, I’m upset about the hurt this has caused us, and the doubt it’s made us feel.” As those of you who know me can imagine, this is where I promptly get all blubbery. My Khmer dad is such a good man- not too different from my real dad in the states.

I also feel guilty since my room was the only one that wasn’t stolen from. This fact sunk in only later, when I came upstairs and saw the scene in the common room that separates my mom and dad’s room, my room, and Waitchicka’s: the dresser opposite our rooms was thrown open, its contents strewn everywhere, and in the middle of my yoga mat, which sits near the window, there was a butcher knife. This scene also made me realize how lucky we are that none of us were in the house at the time it happened, as it seems someone easily could have gotten hurt.

On a positive note, it’s been impressive to see how much love and support has come to my family in this time of need. Friends and family have been trickling in and out of the house, a steady stream of about 40 people occupying the place at any given time. Yesterday my mom was consistently surrounded by a huge group of women, recapping the events in case they might’ve missed something. Inversely, my dad sat at the kitchen table— also surrounded, by a group of men— silent and stoic as always, but going over the details too, in his own way. This morning, when I came home from school, my dad was sitting in the same spot, this time on his own. Yesterday's page from the calendar sat, torn off, under his juice glass. Usually my mom just throws them away. It’s like he needed to keep the day around a little longer as proof it really happened.

It amazes me how little time my mom and dad have spent being shocked and devastated over all this, and how quickly they've moved into the “pick up the pieces” stage, bravely facing the reality of the situation. After I’d unsuccessfully asked my dad if I could help in any monetary way, he started to explain how in the coming days he plans on building a bigger fence around the house, installing new metal doors to replace all the wooden ones, and refurbishing the windows with sturdier metal rods than the current wooden ones which could easily be snapped and broken into if one were so inclined.

One last thing about all of this before I try to get on with things and help my family do the same: I’m so incredibly impressed with their ability to maintain optimism in the face of all this misfortune. Lesser people would allow themselves to feel let down by humanity, pessimistic and cynical, and maybe disillusioned with life itself for a little while, not to mention scared. I’ll admit, I felt all of these things when this first happened and still do a little bit. But not my Khmer dad or mom. They are grieving, I know, but they also know that life goes on. In the past 24 hours I’ve still seen my dad smile and laugh and my mom has hugged my shoulders affectionately and asked me “how’s it going” (Khmer people are not affectionate in the slightest, so this is kind of a big deal). They have seen enough of the bad before to know that it’s a part of things, and you have to take it in stride. Just like they did when they were young and poor and hungry, just like they did during the Khmer Rouge when all there was to eat was watery rice porridge and they were forced to work under the hot sun in the rice fields for 14 hours a day, they’ll find a way to pick up the pieces from this and move on towards better things to come in the future.

Peace Corps is not a vacation.

Recently, a fellow volunteer and one of my closest friends here shared with me how an acquaintance from home recently asked her how her “extended vacation” was going in Cambodia. Understandably, she was more than a little upset by this comment, as was I when she shared it with me.

I don’t think this misconception is uncommon, which is why I want to address it here and hopefully nip it in the bud, at least for my blog readers. I imagine it’s something I’ll have to deal with when I get home, from those who are ignorant of what this experience is really like, so I thought it best to consider exactly why the distinction is so stark in my mind so I can better express this to others. Here are a few of the reasons I came up with.

Dress

• Vacation: freedom of dress. On a vacation you wear what you want to wear, maybe even if it’s not what’s culturally acceptable in the country you’re visiting. You’re a tourist, after all. How should you know?
• Peace Corps: restriction of dress. If you want to be accepted into your community, it’s advisable NOT to go out and about in a tank top and shorts if that’s not appropriate in your country of service. Similarly, if there are stipulations regarding dress where you work, you must abide by them if you want to be accepted.

Conduct

• Vacation: freedom of action. If you choose to go out and make poor decisions, that affects only you (and perhaps whoever was with you at the time who you might’ve shamed in the process).
• Peace Corps: restriction of action. If you shame yourself, you shame your entire community, as well as the reputation of Americans in general. For many in your community, you are the only contact they've ever had with an American, so you represent not only yourself but all of America. All of what you do, what you say, and how you act paint a picture, whether you intend them to or not.

Responsibility

• Vacation: No responsibilities and no commitments. Okay, so maybe you’re committed to a dinner reservation or a show, but nothing you’re absolutely required to go to.
• Peace Corps: Commitment to teach English in an impoverished Cambodian school, or work in a Cambodian health center, to the best of your abilities, for two years and three months. No backing out at the last minute because you “just didn’t feel like it” unless you want people to stop trusting you and taking you seriously.
• The weight of this commitment should be elaborated on. There are some days when I feel like the four hours I teach in the morning is an eternity, such is the challenge it presents. At least once a week, I doubt my ability to do this job- this is how exhausting it can be. I haven’t worked in a Cambodian health center or hospital, but I have been inside of one and seen how dire the situation is. Patients are herded together in one room, breathing each other’s stale, sick air, laying on hard wooden “cots,” and pretty much unanimously offered Cambodians’ “treatment” of choice: an IV bag with sugar water. The doctor comes to visit everyone in one fell swoop, so as to save time.
• Commitment to live, eat, interact, and integrate with a host family and the local community. Commitment to help in whatever capacity capable- through establishment of English clubs, girls’ clubs, work with NGOs, help with grant-writing and/or applying for scholarships, and other forms of community development. Each volunteer interprets this commitment differently, but we’re all working to fulfill it to the best of our abilities.
• Again, this point merits elaboration. As a tourist, you’re enabled to glide through your country of visit ignorantly should you so choose, taking everything at face value and being okay with that. As a volunteer, you inevitably learn your country of service’s dirty little secrets. You see the corruption, you learn about a family friend’s double life with a second family, you hear stories about living through the Khmer Rouge… You see the ugliness as well as the beauty, and have to continually challenge yourself to reconcile the two as best you can.

Food

• Vacation: Tasting local foods at high dollar prices in touristy areas, where the food’s likely to be much cleaner than what the local people are eating.
• Peace Corps: Eating what the locals eat. In a developing country, this means getting sick… A lot. I no longer flinch at the sound of my neighbors vomiting, and am unfazed when a student abruptly leaves class due to diarrhea. In a developing country, eating what the locals eat also means, in large part, not getting proper nutrition. People are most reliant on staple foods which provide little to no nutritional value, such as white rice, which fills you up and is cheap. Sugar is another ingredient that’s put in everything, as is MSG, which is considered by Khmer a “super seasoning.” While I physically eat the same amount as I did in the states, I get hungry again more quickly, and due to the empty calories, have gained weight.

Integration

• Vacation: Not required to truly interact with the local people to be able to get by (asking for directions or being able to say “thank you” or “hi” in the local language doesn’t count, although learning a few words is always an appreciated gesture).
• Peace Corps: Required to interact with the local people to survive. Volunteers must learn to speak the local language, on a comfortable conversational level, if we hope to make any kind of meaningful connections in our communities, and work together with local community members to make projects sustainable.

Freedom of Choice

• Vacation: You decide where to go, and how long you’ll stay.
• Peace Corps: While applicants have some say in determining where they will be placed, ultimately the decision lies with Peace Corps. I know multiple volunteers here who were initially under the impression they’d be going to Africa, only to find out several months after their nomination that their programs had been cut, and they’d been reassigned to Cambodia. This is not an uncommon scenario. Peace Corps requires flexibility from its volunteers from the very beginning of the application process. If one hopes to complete 27 months of service flexibility is an absolute requirement, as virtually nothing you do will go as you’d originally planned.

These are just a few of the most glaring contrasts, but I’m sure there are many more. I hope this gives an impression as to why this comparison struck my friend and I as so totally and utterly false, and I hope that as my readers and friends you will do your part to dispel this fallacy should you encounter it. While being a volunteer in the Peace Corps can be “exciting” and an “adventure,” these are only two minor parts in a greater story which is much more grounded in “day-to-day survival” and “patience.” Just as the first pair incomparable to the second, so is a vacation to the Peace Corps.

"Life Term for Cambodia Khmer Rouge Jailer"

"Th[is] 69-year-old was the commander of Tuol Sleng prison, where at least 15,000 men, women and children deemed enemies of the regime were tortured and then executed in "killing fields" outside Phnom Penh." Read more...

As the first of the convicted yet to be sentenced, this is HUGE news for survivors of the Khmer Rouge. Justice is coming thirty years after the fact, but still and all, better late than never.

"À l’occasion de ça," or, "On an occasion such as this."

The other day I decided to walk to my market to buy some fruit. Usually, I’d just ride my bike, but today I had ample free time and was in no rush. This change in transportation surprised basically everyone in my village though, and I had to repeatedly explain to moto drivers who’d pull up beside me and pat on the back of their seat that, no, really- I want to do this. I met my fruit lady who, as usual, gave me two extra pieces of fruit in addition to what I paid for.

I was just about to put my headphones in for the journey back, when the elderly French-speaking man who lives next to my co-teacher pulled up on his bike and hopped off beside me. “Où allez-vous?" he asked, and I replied I was going to Nam Heng’s house to chat for a bit (and hopefully get one of those delicious peanut cakes his wife makes). “Ahh, oui! C’est pas loin de ma maison, ne c’est pas? Oui oui… À l’occasion de ca on peut y aller ensemble.” And so we did, chatting about the weather, “Aujourd’hui fait très chaud ne c’est pas?” and others of life’s daily minutia. The content was the same as any other conversation I’ve had about these sorts of things in Khmer, but they were given a fresh face in French and so seemed more interesting and engaging.

The conversation ebbed and flowed, drifting here and there as either his or my French faltered, and just as quickly as it started, it ended, him hopping back on his bike and bidding me “Adieu,” riding off into the heat of the day.
Smiling to myself after he left, I thought that I really liked his use of the expression “On an occasion such as this.” 
…So what’s the point of this little story? I don’t know that there is one, I just like everything that happened in it. I like that we were both on the same page, awake enough on an otherwise oppressive afternoon to pull each other out of our reveries and connect for a few minutes through a trivial, meaningless conversation, that really could have only happened on an occasion such as that.

~~~~~

In other news, my Ohn just recently got a puppy. Brazil, (pronounced “Brathil” in the true, lispy Spanish fashion), was hit by a car a while ago, and after a grieving period, she decided Brathil probably wouldn’t have wanted her sitting around moping over his death so she consented to get a puppy. “Robut” (Robert) is the name of the little rascal that has filled his shoes. Although he’s flea-ridden and has taken to peeing all over my feet, tail wagging furiously, the moment I enter the door, I can’t stay away from him and all is forgiven when he sets his paws over my toes and gazes up at me with those big puppy dog eyes. Sigh.

Robut, in a rare moment of obedience

adlsfkjadfl!