A Passover Miracle

I had intended for this to be an update on the status of my work but recent events seemed too surprising for me not to share. I promise an update on my work soon.

The Jewish holiday of Passover began on Saturday night. For the uninitiated, this is one of the biggest events in the Jewish calendar. Celebrating the story of the exodus from Egypt and the receipt of God’s revelation at Sinai, it’s akin to Easter for Christians, and maybe Eid for the Muslims, or Holi for the Hindus. For eight days Jews abstain from all leavened bread and instead cook massive amounts of food using a large unleavened cracker called Matzoh. Families gather together on the first two nights for a ritual meal known as a Seder. The last supper of Jesus was one of these. It comprises a long set ritual of prayers, blessings, and consumption of symbolic foods. Wine for celebration. Eggs for renewal. Bitter herbs to represent the harshness of slavery. Salt water for tears.

For the past several weeks, friends and relatives have inquired what I planned to do to celebrate the holiday. E-mails from my mother in the weeks leading up to it were a little concerned: “Do you have any plans for Passover? Is there maybe a Seder you can join in Phnom Penh? Do the Lubavitchers at least have a community there? If not, can they maybe send you some Matzoh??”

Lubavitchers are perhaps the world’s most unique group of evangelists. They proselytize only to their own people, trying to make religious converts out of secular Jews. To that end, they’ve set up missions, often known as Chabad Houses, throughout the world. My answers were invariably the same, “The nearest Chabad is a day’s ride away across an international border in Bangkok. Asking them to ship me some Matzoh just seems ridiculous. There is no Jewish community here with which to have a seder. Only the Muslims and the ex-pats even know what a Jew is. I for one plan to have some stir fry on rice with a side of mango and maybe some eggs in salt water for my seder. Sorry Mom. I’ve got a siddur (prayer book) here that I can skim through but that’s about it.”

On Saturday night I skipped the Seder, hard-boiled the only egg I had, and, feeling full from my stir-fry, decided to save it for the next night. Sunday I went to the Cambodian National Museum, a beautiful building in which ancient images of the Buddha and the Hindu deities spanning fifteen hundred years of Khmer civilization reside in four corridors surrounding an open-air courtyard. As I wandered amongst the statues, politely refusing the jasmine flowers proffered to me by museum staff to be used as offerings to the Buddha images, the irony was not lost on me that I was spending my celebration of the victory of God over idolatry surrounded by idols.

At the center of the courtyard sat a stone Buddha meditating under a stupa in the center of a pond. Around this pond were four larger ponds filled with budding pink lotus flowers. It was quite beautiful. I relaxed nearby in the shade, alternately napping on a wicker chair and chatting with a young monk. As the museum began to empty, I stopped to take some photos. Next to me, I thought I heard someone speaking in Hebrew.

Lotus in the Museum

“Shalom,” I ventured to the woman walking past. “Shalom,” she replied. This was followed by a string of Hebrew I could barely discern asking where I was from, how I had learned Hebrew, and was I Jewish. After weeks of focusing on Khmer, I was unprepared for the onslaught. I stuttered, muttering in tree languages simultaneously, “Ani moak bee Canada… Crud! Ummm…. Somtoh…. Knyom lomed ha’lashon Khmer ve’lehoshev be’ivrit achshav zeh kasheh me’od. Okay… ummm… Hayom zeh Pesah?” To a Hebrew speaker, this translates roughly into “I [Khmer words] Canada. [English cursing] [More Khmer] learning the tongue is Khmer and to thenk in Hebrew now, this very hard. Okay… [awkward pause] Today is Passover?”

She was nonplussed and responded in Hebrew that yes it was Passover, she and her tour group were on holiday though and didn’t much mind missing the rituals and then switched to English and said, “Okay. Bye-bye.” I was dismissed.

I spent the next ten minutes amongst the statuary abusing myself in Hebrew for my inability to communicate. This helped me remember how to speak properly. I was sure that, limited as my abilities were, given another opportunity, I’d be able to use them. On the way out, as I put my camera in my backpack, the man in front of me mumbled something garbled in Hebrew that sounded like “…. speak Hebrew.”

“I can speak a little bit,” I responded, “You are all … Israeli?” From there, with slightly clearer Hebrew, I attracted a crowd. “You’re the first Jews I’ve seen in two months,” I told them. Between English and Hebrew, I explained about my work, life in Cambodia, and my mother’s questions about my Seder plans.

The whole tour group took an interest. They had already had their Seder but one of them had leftover Matzoh, wine, and bitter herbs to offer me. He gave me the name of their hotel, his name, Ranata, and a room number. “Stop by at eight o’clock,” he told me, continuing with a little snarkiness, “You can tell your Mother that it was Israelis not Lubavitchers who were able to help you.” When I arrived, I was immediately recognized and greeted by the members of the tour. Ranata had no wine or bitter herbs to give after all, but he did supply me with enough Matzoh to last the rest of the week, some rabbinically certified cookies, and even a large Kosher for Passover Toblerone bar. I was amazed and very grateful, thanking him and everyone else in sight profusely before merrily biking home.

Searching for juice at the market as it was closing the day before, all I had been able to find was grape drink. I had never seen grape drink here before and wanted a different flavour. None was available. So, I bought it. Arriving home that night, I soon found myself in conversation with my next-door neighbour. As we chatted one of the young men from the neighbourhood arrived. We had never met but his English was good and the conversation went on for some time. An essential ingredient of the Passover Seder is four cups of wine or at least grape juice. I offered some grape drink to both my neighbour and our guest before quietly starting a ritual of my own as we talked. The only English on the bottle assured me that it contained “25% real juice.” This was good enough for me.

Afterwards, lacking many of the tools for a proper Seder, not least of which is a Hagadah, a prayer book containing the proper order and wording of the various prayers and rituals, I nevertheless threw on my skullcap, put my egg, a hot pepper to substitute for the bitter herbs, some soup spices in place of green leafy vegetables, and my matzoh in a bowl. It wasn’t quite a ritual seder plate but I figured it would do in a pinch. I mixed up some salt water for dipping in a glass and recited what blessings I could in what was almost certainly the wrong order. Afterwards, I followed what prayers I could from my general all-purpose siddur (prayer book).

Adam’s Seder

So this was my Passover miracle. Was it Kosher? Almost certainly not. Still, between all of the unlikely events leading up to it, purchasing the grape drink, preserving my only remaining egg an extra day, and obtaining the matzoh from the Israelis, I’m loathe to call it all coincidence.

Hill Tribes of Ratanakiri

One week later and I’m back in Phnom Penh. The trip was one new experience after another. I departed early Saturday morning on a small minibus from Phnom Penh to Kratie, a province a little to the north of Phnom Penh. An overnight trip by pickup truck on Sunday brought me to Ratanakiri, one of Cambodia’s most remote provinces where, I’m happy to report, I was greeted by the sight of countless billboards advertising the Cambodian Red Cross’ Ceramic Water Purifier, a product manufactured at a factory for whose establishment my EWB predecessor, Selena, was responsible. I hope my work here is half as successful.

With a week’s worth of backlogged e-mails, a couple of projects back on the go at IDE, and a belly full of the lemon tofu stir fry sandwich I just ate for dinner, I can’t muster up the energy to write all of my stories just now. I do promise, however, that I’ll post the highlights, pictures included, retroactively over the next few weeks. The picture below was taken at the Cha Ong waterfall gorge, about 5km outside of Ban Lung in Ratanakiri.

Adam in Ratanakiri

In the meanwhile, I’d like to try a bit of an experiment. Working here is continually changing and shaping my perspective on development. With more time to think and plenty to ponder, my views on poverty, education, gender equality, nepotism, corruption, the role of technology, the role of NGOs, and especially my own role as a development worker here in Cambodia have been constantly in flux. Many of you will probably already have seen this in my e-mails home. Thinking is fun but less productive alone. I’d like to be able to share some of this process with others. This is where the experiment begins.

During EWB volunteer training we focused a lot of time on analyzing the cycle of poverty. Poverty has many causes. Each cause has many effects. Some of these effects may cause other problems that lead to greater poverty. It’s a hard cycle to break. I’m going to try to focus on one or two of these causes/effects and explain the problem. There is no single good solution to any of them, only options and ideas. I’d like to see if I can get a discussion going in the comments section of the blog. This is my attempt to share with you some of what I’m learning here in between posts about the life and culture here. I’d also love to see what others thing.

This time, in keeping with the Ratanakiri theme, I’m going to talk a bit about the problem of development versus indigenous rights. Ratanakiri is home to Cambodia’s hill tribe minorities, known collectively as the Khmer Loeu. There are a variety of tribes, including the Tampuon, Chunchiet, and Krung, each living in their own villages with their own tools and traditions. In post-Khmer Rouge Cambodia, their livelihoods were upset for many years by Cambodia’s illegal timber trade. Corrupt members of the government and military, including both Prime Ministers would award massive illegal logging contracts to the highest bidder. They were quite brazen about it. Land used and occupied by these tribes would be appropriated, exploited, and left. Villagers who attempted to interfere were turned away at gunpoint by army personnel brought in by generals who were also involved in the scam.

Eventually, through the effort of several NGOs, the Khmer Loeu were educated regarding their rights to the land and their legal rights and abilities to fight this problem. Through a combination of well-timed pressure from international environmental groups and their own efforts, they were largely successful. Logging is no longer a major problem in Ratanakiri. In the meanwhile, however, other landowners have been busily purchasing land that once used by the Khmer Loeu, driving them further into the jungle. To sustain their rice farming, they have begun a campaign of slash and burn agriculture. At the end of the dry season, the they now light massive forest fires to clear land so that they will have fields to cultivate during the rainy season. On my visit to Ratanakiri province, I lost count of the number of burned and/or burning fields that I passed. They were everywhere.

This is especially unfortunate since, thanks to years of massive sustained illegal logging, Cambodia is nearing a crisis point in its deforestation. The fields cleared in the jungle are good for maybe three years before they become uselessly depleted of nutrients. In the meanwhile, as the dust in the ground gradually turns former forestland into a desert, the waterways are choked by sand. One government group, I believe it’s called the (
National Timberwood Authority (NTA), is attempting to educate the hill tribes regarding the devastating results of this practice. Still, the Khmer Loeu need a means by which to eat and the NTA does not seem to have provided one yet.

Some would argue that they should take modern jobs. These are unfortunately already in short supply in Cambodia. The increased interaction with modern Cambodia has also begun to erode their traditional way of life. Already they wear modern clothes. I met a Tampuon working for the NGO, Care, in Ratanakiri. He was involved in educational and retraining programs for the tribes in and around Ban Lung, the capital of Ratanakiri. He was also working on an illustrated Tampuon-Kreung-Khmer dictionary. Seeing their culture gradually erode, programs have begun to increase communication and help them preserve it. Still, there is some tension between Khmer and Khmer Loeu. The only time I have heard of Cambodians not making an effort to smile at each other occurs here. A Khmer Loeu will almost never smile at a Khmer.

Cambodian roads are the worst in South East Asia and may be some of the worst on Earth. A trip of 100km can be a six hour journey through craters, across bumpy tracks surrounded by sixty centimeter deep crevasses, and over hills that more closely resemble sand dunes during the dry season and swampland during the rainy. Miraculously for Cambodia, despite the ubiquitous government corruption that has until now hampered all such efforts, the roads in and out of Ratanakiri are beginning to be repaired. With improved roads, a massive influx of businesses and tourists is starting to begin. Already the Internet, albeit slowly and intermittently, has reached Ban Lung. The number of guesthouses seems to have roughly doubled since my Lonely Planet guidebook was published two years ago. The benefits of improved roads are many: better access to health care, ease of transportation for food, increased business across the Laotian border. In other words, as the roads continue to improve there will be an overall improvement in the standard of living of most Khmer in Ratanakiri. Unfortunately, the already endangered Khmer Loeu way of life will be under greater threat.

Reducing their culture to a tourist attraction may help the Khmer Loeu financially but will hardly be of lasting cultural value to them. Retreat from encroaching modernism no longer seems like a viable option either. Slash and burn agriculture is proving a stop gap solution at best to their food needs and in a country starved for firewood, it also seems very wasteful. So, what action should be taken? What is the role of the government? Of NGOs? How is this affected by government corruption? I’ve got some ideas on the subject but I’d love to hear yours. Click on the comment link just below and let me know what you think. Cheers.

Ratanakiri - Day 1

Dusty and exhausted from our night on the road, Kamil, Aska, and I soon found our way through an ad in front of a motorbike rental shop to a small $2/night guesthouse. The guesthouse was actually the bikeshop owner’s home, a wooden building across the street from a small lake. There were two restaurants by the lakeside, the larger one staffed by several waiters, and the smaller one owned by a family of Cham Muslims.

Aska and I left an exhausted Kamil behind, hiring a moto to investigate one of Ratanakiri’s biggest attractions, Yeak Lom, a big round crater lake, about three hundred metres wide and about fourty metres deep, surrounded by forest. The water was clear, refreshing, and cool, cold but not too cold. Beer and mango stalls awaited us by the small dock at the side of the lake. Happily, the mangos were their usual reliably tasty selves as was the beer. For some inexplicable reason, not only d the Khmer love beer but they do heck of a good job brewing it too.

On the Shores of Yeak Lom

We spent so long at the lake that by the time we were ready to depart, the sun was nearly setting and the last moto-taxi had left. Aska and I began the 5km walk back to the guesthouse in the dark, hoping we wouldn’t make a wrong turn. About two-thirds of the way there, a taxi pulled up beside us, asking in clear English, “Do you need a moto to go to Ban Lung?” We haggled a little and were soon on our weary way. “I’m not actually a moto driver,” our unexpected rescuer told us, “but you looked very lost. I work for an NGO, Care. I help with training and education for some of the tribespeople. I’m also working on the final touches for an illustrated Khmer-Tampuon-Kreung dictionary. My name is Samoeun. Do you need a guide? I have no work right now because of Khmer New Year and would be happy to show you through Ratanakiri.”

Ratanakiri is home to the bulk of Cambodia’s hill tribe minorities, several different groups known collectively sometimes as Chunchiet, sometimes as Khmer Loeu. The Khmer Loeu have a long history living near to the Khmer but have maintained what we would consider a more aboriginal mode of existence, complete with their own languages and religious beliefs. Samoeun we soon discovered was from a local tribe of the Tampuon group. I took down his phone number, promising that if we needed a guide, we would contact him.

By the time we returned, Kamil had given up waiting for us at the guesthouse. Politely turning down an offer to join our host for dinner, we went in search of him. When we found him, he was finishing a meal at the Cham Muslim restaurant. We sat down to join him, discovering as we did so that one of the family members, recently returned from work in Phnom Penh so as to be with family during her pregnancy, was nearly fluent in English. I took advantage of the opportunity to ask her some questions about her people, their history, and how their Muslim beliefs were affected by the dominant Buddhist culture. She was happy to answer the questions and left me with an open invitation to have her son or one of her other relatives accompany me on a visit to their mosque.

One day in Ratanakiri and I found myself living in a Buddhist home for Khmer New Year, being offered tours by a guide from the hill tribes, and receiving an open invitation to visit a Cham Muslim mosque. The Religious Studies major in me was very pleased.

On Top of Things

Four weeks ago I told EWB’s Director of Overseas Projects, Russ, that I was planning on crossing the border into Vietnam to change my visa status in Cambodia. “No problem,” wrote Russ, “I just need to know the dates you’ll be away so I can adjust your insurance.” I had no idea that crossing international boundaries would affect my insurance. Engineers Without Borders eh? How ironic.

“Anything else that I should know about that will affect the insurance?” I asked, “Motorcycles with too many passengers? Travelling in the back of pickups?” “Motorbikes are fine,” responded Russ, “Just don’t do anything too stupid like travel on the roof of a bus.”

In retrospect, I wonder how he knew…

It started innocently enough. I was in the province of Kratie, working my way towards Ratanakiri near the Laotian and Vietnamese borders. Share taxi service was infrequent, pickup trucks apparently more so. Buses were non-existent. I was doing some quick shopping in the market while I waited for my share taxi to fill so that we could depart. Lounging nearby at the guesthouse where I had been staying were two Poles, waiting for a pickup to depart. We chatted a bit while they convinced me that their pickup would be the cheaper, quicker, and more culturally authentic means of transport to Ratanakiri. Together we went to the taxi park to alter my travel plans.

Waiting for the Pickup to Fill

After about two hours of waiting, the pickup began to fill. “We should probably go reserve ourselves some seats,” I said. “Don’t worry about it,” my new friends responded, “We are barang (foreigners). They’ll tell us when we should board.” An hour later, twenty-six people, their luggage and even some furniture were crammed onto the back of the pickup. “Maybe we should board,” I said again. “You’re probably right,” they responded, “You’re the engineer. Where will we fit?” Already dreading the answer, I examined the situation. “Nowhere left but the roof,” I told them.

We climbed onto the roof. It was already somewhat occupied. The only seats left were on a hard metal grill covered by a tarp, facing nothing but the hood and the empty air above it. Ninety minutes of forty plus degree direct sun later, we began to move. I felt like a fool for being on the roof. Still, this was an adventure and I was excited!

Soon, the dust started. In front of us, sitting calmly on the hood like a Buddha with sunglasses, legs crossed, one hand on a windshield wiper, was an employee of the truck company. At sixty kph, the only way to breath while surrounded by Cambodian dust is with a mask. I had two. I offered him one and took the other for myself. Both immediately broke. I tried to hold mine on with one hand while hanging on for dear life with the other. Unable to see through the flying dirt, I put on my sunglasses. I reviewed the road as it passed underneath us. The sunglasses fell off. “Easy come easy go,” I thought. I was about to spend the next eight hours with my hand over my mouth and my eyes tightly shut.

Only it was going to be closer to fifteen hours.

Next, the rain started. The pickup stopped. The tarp that had been our cushion came out and became our shelter. I was now wet, holding a tarp against the sixty kph headwind, with my butt resting on a hard metal grille. Going over Cambodian roads, the worst ones in Asia, the potholes resembled bomb craters. Given the history of civil war in this country, some of them may have been. To avoid these, our pickup swerved constantly from one end of the road to the other. When our driver made a mistake, the pickup would crash into a pothole, jarring my behind, and causing the whole truck to tilt as much as thirty degrees to the side. My underside took a beating. I hung on for dear life. The man behind me sat with one leg to the back of the pickup and one over the side. His daughter sat on his lap, dangling precariously over the edge. No one seemed very surprised by this.

Kamil, Aska, and I Reserve our Seats

Eventually the rain stopped. The tarp was refolded so that it no longer covered my seat. I repaired my dust mask. I cushioned my underside with several cotton sarongs and a copy of Lonely Planet Cambodia. The ride continued. After an hour, the sarongs and the Lonely Planet were no longer much help. “Are you regretting not taking the share taxi?” the Poles asked me with some concern.

The ride continued. Every forty minutes we stopped so that the driver could pour water on the overheating engine. My butt hurt. Night fell. I wanted to sleep. This was not a good idea. The roads were getting worse. We stopped twice for about an hour to doze and let the engine cool. I lay down in the dirt on the side of the road, stared at the stars, and wondered when the journey would end. We arrived in Ratanakiri at 7am the next morning, fifteen hours after our departure.

As an aside, four days later, on the return journey, I took the share-taxi to Kratie and a nice air-con bus to Phnom Penh. This time, all I had to contend with was a woman, seated underneath the driver, who seemed to be involved in a domestic dispute. She would alternately yell at a nearby motorcycle carrying a man and boy, or throw up out the driver’s side window.

Kratie

I awoke at 5:30 am so as to be absolutely certain to be on time for my bus. I felt a little sick. I had been at the office throughout the previous evening, learning traditional dances, eating, drinking, and, with keyboard accompaniment, repeatedly belting out a tacky French love song from the 1960s. I had only begun to solidify my New Year’s travel plans during lunch the previous day, biking to the waterfront to purchase passage on a boat to Kratie, halfway between Phnom Penh and Ratanakiri. In an encouraging albeit inconvenient sign of Cambodia’s development though, boat service from Phnom Penh to Kratie no longer exists. The roads have improved and busses have undercut the whole industry. Improvising, I shaved one dollar off the extravagant $9 bus fare to Kratie, by agreeing that I would travel in a bus peopled not by tourists but by locals. That last was hardly a concession. I had spent the last four weeks studiously avoiding tourists in the hopes of increasing my integration into Cambodian culture.

Adam Sings ‘Aline’. Kressna Accompanies.

Arriving at the bus station, I found my ticket vendor waiting for me. He took my bag, loaded it into his car and drove me to the central market. I was confused. We exited the vehicle. He led me to a minibus and promptly disappeared. An eleven year old boy loaded my backpack onto the roof and I hopped into the overcrowded vehicle through a window. I was soon making friends with my fellow passengers as they helped me with the Khmer reading exercises in my grammar book. With some difficulty I asked them how much they had paid for their passage. Four dollars, they told me. No wonder the ticket vendor had disappeared. He’d bought my place on the minibus for half price and pocketed $4 for himself! I didn’t mind though. This is how business is done here and his crafty business skills had helped me to slip from tourist back to quasi-local foreigner status.

Seven hours later, and a stop at which I helped some farmers to remove yet another large piece of furniture from the roof of our van, we arrived in Kratie. Fending off the touts and moto-drivers with some polite Khmer, and some friendly support from my fellow passengers (“Oh yeah. This barang’s okay. He can speak Khmerm”), I had soon found a nice little guesthouse and secured a moto-driver for some sightseeing. My driver was one of two sons helping to run the family guesthouse. His name was Sua. His English was great and he was happy to help me practice my Khmer. His mother, for her part, never seemed quite to believe that I couldn’t understand her when she spoke and always greeted me with new questions that I could not answer.

My first stop with Sua was a dock from which tourists rent boats to see endangered Iriwaddy River Dolphins as they swim through the Mekong. I hired a small boat and driver for myself and was soon underway. As we floated on the Mekong, my boat driver would break the silence every thirty seconds or so, pointing and saying in perfect English, “Over there!” but knowing virtually no other vocabulary. The dolphins were spectacular. They surrounded us on all sides, occasionally hinting at their presence with a fin pushed out of the water or a head appearing twenty metres away. The hour-long ride was incredibly relaxing and the Mekong itself was beautiful.

Twilight on The Mekong River

Photographing the sunset, I was joined by another tourist, an Englishman named Ashley. He and his driver soon accompanied Sua and I to visit the nearby Pagoda on Mt. Sambok. Leaving our drivers at the base of the hill, Ashley and I climbed the steps to the Pagoda. Entering the grounds, we found some of the first paintings I had ever seen of the Khmer Buddhist interpretation of hell.

Paintings at Wat Sambok

Climbing still higher, we met two monks, one of whom spoke some English. He asked us to help him in pronouncing some of the Buddhist scriptures that he had just translated from Pali into English. We chatted amicably. Though his name now escapes me, I remember that he had been a monk for over ten years and was one of the first I had met who seemed genuinely devouted to meditation, discipline, and hopefully enlightenment. I’ve since learned that the reason for which monks in Phnom Penh often seem young and slightly less interested in English than they are in their cell phones is because Phnom Penh is the center of Buddhist education. Young monks come here for the free education. The monks here in the countryside, however, seemed genuinely devouted to their scriptures, beliefs, and personal quests. In exchange for our help with his English work, this monk offered to lead us in a ten-minute meditation session. We both agreed enthusiastically, entering a small nearby shrine to learn the Apasana method of Theravada Buddhist meditation.

Monks on the Mountaintop

The meditation was restful. Our concentration was interrupted only by his mantra-like repetition of the English scripture with which we had helped him. Afterwords we walked and chatted further, learning of Buddhist beliefs and the monk’s own views on enlightenment and the Sangga (the Buddhist community of monks). Ashley and I proceeded onwards to the top of the mountain to photograph the countryside in the rapidly fading light. We climbed back down, agreeing to meet for dinner later that night.

As we left, half-an-hour behind the schedule to which Sua and I had agreed, an event with which many of you will be familiar occurred. I realized I no longer had my Tilley Hat. “Chop! Chop! (Stop!)” I shouted to Sua. “I forgot my hat,” I bashfully explained. I ran back up the mountain, taking the steps two at a time. Motioning to the workers at the entrance that I had forgotten something, I tore inside the shrine where we had meditated, searching for my hat and reminding myself constantly, “Don’t worry. Monks can’t steal. It’s one of their vows. They wouldn’t want your stupid hat anyway.” I gave up in the shrine. Climbing to the very summit, I found my hat stuffed into a crack in a fence along the side of a stone shrine. Right where I had left it while taking a photograph. Exhausted, out of breath, and feeling silly, I jogged back down the steps and hopped on the moto, looking forward to a nice cold shower before dinner.

The next morning, Sua and I departed early to make the 37km journey to Cambodia’s largest Pagoda, Wat Sambor, with time enough for me to return and find transport to Ratanakiri that afternoon. Also known as the Wat of 108 columns, this temple is quite the sight to see. Inside, I once again found the locals very appreciative of my rudimentary Khmer. They politely offered me an illustrated English biography of the Buddha as I sat in front of the central shrine admiring the beautiful paintings all around me.

Wat Sambor

Outside, a ninety year old man, who acted as the temple’s caretaker, greeted me in French. We spoke a little. Unfortunately, though he could understand me, between his thick accent and lack of teeth, I could barely make out a word he said. Sua and I soon sat down to a glass of sugar cane juice before beginning the return journey. Stopping along the way at some rapids over which had been constructed an endless series of roofed platforms for picnicking, I began to appreciate why Khmer couples and families so enjoy lounging in places like this as a type of national weekend pastime.

Sua Dips his Feet at the Rapids

Unfortunately, when it came time to depart, we found an accident blocking traffic in both directions for over a hundred metres. A car and a construction truck had both almost but not quite collided on a bridge. The result was a mess in which a move by either one would almost certainly result in some serious damage to the car.

Accident on the Bridge

We waited for over an hour while I observed local means of shipping livestock a little more closely than I am usually able to do. Piles of chickens were stuffed onto a motorcycle, some hanging from the handlebars by their feet, all of them still alive and clucking to keep them fresh for market. The animal rights activist in me wanted to cry, especially because treating animals in this manner here is not so much an act of cruelty as necessity and convenience. The Khmer lack food. Animals are a protein source. They’re busy enough trying to survive themselves that concepts like animal cruelty can be difficult to convey in this situation and completely alien to their understanding.

Chicken Moto

I gave up hope of reaching a pickup truck before it’s departure. I needn’t have worried. Arriving back in town, both a share taxi and a pickup truck were still available to go to the capital city of Ratanakiri, Ban Lung. Given it required fewer people to depart and I would already likely be arriving long after dark, I opted for the more expensive share-taxi and returned to my guesthouse to await news that it had filled.

Happy New Year!

The biggest holiday of the Cambodian year, Khmer New Year, begins on Wednesday next week and continues until Friday. Playing games and dancing in the street started around the time I first arrived in Phnom Penh and has been going strong ever since. I've been joining in when when the opportunity arises. There's something really heartwarming in these crowds. Twenty-somethings play alongside three year olds, everyone laughs hysterically, and people dash about in games that loosely resemble tag, bowling, and duck duck goose.

To make things extra interesting, this is the biggest statutory holiday of the year, meaning that I get the week off from work next week! (Don't get me wrong. I love my work and am eager to have a positive impact here but this will likely be the most time that I will ever have free simply to explore Cambodia. I'm pretty excited about that. :) ).

I was hoping to have an update about my experiences during the unstructured interviews we've conducted over the past week to learn about the livelihoods of farmers, crop collectors, wholesalers, and retailers here in Kandal province. For those interested in the nitty-gritty aspects of both the post-harvest green leafy vegetable cycle here and our work researching it, I've posted a document relating to our plans for a systematic survey:

Basic Information and Measurement Strategy

Unfortunately, the office New Year's party begin's in half an hour. So, it looks like I've run out of time to do more than that right now.

In other news, I received two good personal responses to my hand laundry post. For those of you interested in how to actually perform this task properly as well as some of the development issues it raises, I've reprinted both e-mails with permission here.

In the meanwhile, I'm off on the early-morning minibus to Kratie province tomorrow. From there I'll probably work my way up by boat, bus, and pickup truck to Cambodia's wild North, the provinces of Ratanakiri and/or Mondulkiri.

Happy New Year!

A Weekend of Firsts

I paid my first bribe this weekend. That came last though. Beforehand I visited my first Communist country, met my first razor artist, and saw my first traffic fatality in Asia.

I’ve had some visa troubles here. When I arrived at the airport I purchased a Business visa for $25USD. I was issued a default E class business visa. For some strange reason, the government has recently decided that these are not extendible. I needed to cross an international border and re-enter the country to correct things. Mr Lang, the Administration Manager at IDE contacted the government for me and received a formal certificate, stating that I was employed in Cambodia and should be granted a B class visa. I was to present this at the border.

Saturday morning I took the bus to Ho Chi Minh city. Alicia, a good friend of some good friends of mine, happened to be in Vietnam on a conference from her job teaching English in Hong Kong. We’d agreed to meet that night for dinner. In the meantime, she’d booked me a room at the hotel where she was staying.

Fields of Dust on the Cambodian Side of the Border

Just crossing the border, one notices an immediate change. Vietnam is hardly the most developed of nations but while on the Cambodia side of the border, a drought held sway and fields lay cracked open by the heat, in Vietnam greenery lined by electric poles stretched into the distance and every house seemed to have a massive TV antenna. I arrived in Saigon and checked in to my room, a cozy little number with dozens of English satellite TV channels, including HBO, air conditioning, and even hot water! I collapsed, slept, and decided to go for a walk.

Television and Fields of Green on the Vietnamese Side

Saigon is not what you’d expect from a Communist country. From every side, neon signs for products ranging from LG appliances to Coca-Cola assaulted me. The latest Brittany Spears song blasted from a large screen TV in front of a department store. I left the main strip to walk along the riverbank in search of some peace of mind. Unfortunately, the shores of the river were being used as a garbage dump. There were several children there flying a big kite. I took out my camera to take a photo.

Children here always seem delighted to have their photo taken. Several offered to take pictures of me with the kite. My gut told me something was amiss. I moved to exit the dump and continue my walk. On my way out, one of the children made what seemed a playful grab at my camera. I dodged aside, laughing with him. In his hand he held a razor blade with which he was trying to slice the camera’s strap away from my wrist. Perhaps not so funny.

I wandered the streets, the markets, and the memorials near the backpackers strip before returning to the hotel to meet with Alicia. After some introductions and conversation, we went in search of a vegetarian restaurant. Along the way we passed a crowd, gathered by the side of the road. Hundreds of people had stopped to stare at a body covered with a white sheet. From my brief experience here, Saigon drivers are a lot like Phnom Penh drivers when it comes to ignoring basic traffic laws. Unfortunately, they seem to lack the courtesy and/or the ability to look where they’re going of their Cambodian counterparts. It was a sad sight. Alicia told me that there are an average of twenty traffic casualties in Ho Chi Minh city every day. I responded that the leading cause of death amongst Peace Corps volunteers is traffic accidents. It makes one wonder about just how much a seatbelt or a good bike helmet is worth.

Alicia and I at the Hotel

The restaurant was superb. The conversation was great. Alicia and I traded stories using our digital cameras. The next day I returned to the border where I presented my certificate and passport to the visa-issuing officer. He stamped the form and gestured for me to pay him. I dutifully handed over the $25USD fee. He returned twenty dollars to me, handed me my passport, and put the remaining five into a small pouch in front of him. “For drinks,” he said with a big Khmer grin.

I looked at my new visa. In the price field the word 'Gratis' was stamped. Apparently Mr. Lang had already paid the processing fee on my behalf. For my part, I had just made my first contribution to Cambodia’s corruption machine.

Tastes Like Chicken...

This one’s not for the squeamish.

There’s a volunteer at EWB who has become something of a legend for his ability to integrate into the local culture. I’ve never met the man. His name is Paul Slomp. I gather he not only does development work but plants his own crops and milks his own goats somewhere in Zambia. During volunteer training several of us were swapping stories about our most uncomfortable culinary experiences. Someone told the following story:

Paul is sitting down to a formal traditional meal with several prominent members of an African community. They are serving a type of chicken soup. As his soup is poured, a decapitated head, complete with beak, plops into the bowl. “You are lucky!” exclaims the man next to him. “You got the head!” Not wanting to offend his host, Paul dutifully eats it. Beak, skull, and all.

He won in absentia. Sarah, director of EWB’s SCALA program in the Philippines came in a close second with her account of the Century Egg, a fetal chicken egg that is left to ferment for one hundred days before being cracked open and swallowed whole and raw in a dark corner somewhere, the reason being that no one wants to see what they’re consuming. Wisely, she’d abstained from the practice.

I just met the Cambodian version.

Being a vegetarian in Cambodia is difficult. They just don’t have the concept for it. If you say “I don’t eat meat,” they locals will stare at you with incomprehension before responding, “Okay, but you should try this. It’s made from pork. You eat pork right?” Eating from local vendors is always something of a meat-eating risk but supporting local business is a priority for me. Less than two hours ago I finished a long day in the field. I have to be awake and ready to work at 1am tonight. We’re surveying vegetable distributors at local markets. 1am is the time when most of their buying and selling occurs. I didn’t have time to cook dinner. Instead, I wandered down to the market for a big bowl of soup from a vendor I’d visited before. She speaks English, so I felt relatively safe.

The street-soup system is simple. Choose a type of noodle. Choose a meat. Sit. Wait. The last time, I chose a flat noodle and asked for hardboiled eggs, explaining that I didn’t eat meat. The vendor looked at me like I was crazy but agreed.

The two eggs that arrived in my soup had been broken into small bits. I mistook some of these bits for mushrooms at first because they were dark gray. I saw that everyone else who was eating eggs was eating them with spoons from small stands as though they were soft-boiled. “Oh,” I thought, “She looked at me oddly because the eggs aren’t for soup. The dark colour must be the result of the soft egg white being boiled in the dark soup broth.”

Tonight I ordered the same. This time though, both eggs came whole, not in small bits. The yolk looked a little veiny but I wasn’t too concerned. “Must be the broth again,” I thought. I saw the egg-white was coloured gray again. I was proud of myself that I no longer thought it was a mushroom. I noticed that the eggs split into smaller pieces only along certain seam lines. That seemed odd. They tasted a little stringy. It made me think disturbingly of feathers.

My soup was two thirds gone. With a sense of foreboding, I swallowed. I dipped my spoon back into the bowl, raised it, and looked at its contents. Next to a small feather, a decapitated fetal head and neck looked back at me. In retrospect, that veiny yolk should have been a bit of a giveaway.

I quickly realized that I’d already been through this with three other eggs. Mechanically, I finished the last of my soup. I paid, queasily strolled home, took a big glass of orange drink, and promised myself I would never eat the ‘soft-boiled’ eggs here again.

I’m pretty sure they’ll be revoking my vegetarian membership card soon.

Graduate Studies

So, rather than sending out the many e-mails necessary to convey this to all those of you who have been supporting and following my post-graduate application, I thought I'd post the most recent update on my blog.

Unfortunately, the University of Cambridge decided to decline my application for their Master of Philosophy in Development Studies program. This leaves the current score as:

Development Studies

University of Sussex - Accepted
University of Cambridge - Declined

Medical Schools

McMaster University - Undecided
University of Toronto - Undecided

In more upbeat news, updates on my work in vegetable packaging and transport as well as my weekend in Vietnam to follow just as soon as I have time.

The Leak that Launched a Thousand Complaints

Speaking of laundry, doing mine on Sunday, I found several stains on my white t-shirt. I couldn’t scrub them out so I rubbed in detergent and left the shirt on the floor to try and life the stain a bit. Leaving this shirt to be washed last, I begun to hang my wet laundry on chairs just outside of my bathroom. By the time I had finished, I noticed that my permanently dirt-covered floor and wet white t-shirt had combined into an uncleanable mess. I tried not to see it as losing a shirt so much as gaining a cleaning rag.

A mite upset, I went outside to hang my laundry. A woman earnestly speaking to me in Khmer soon approached. I smiled politely, appreciating the advice she was trying to give me on how to hang my laundry, but due to incomprehension responded with “Kn’yon meun yeung dtay,” meaning, “I don’t understand.” My neighbour overheard our discussion and explained that there was a problem. The two of them entered my flat and walked straight to the far end.

Pointing to a wet patch on the floor under the chairs where I had left my wet clothes, my neighbour explained that this woman lives downstairs from me and was being dribbled upon by my laundry water. I apologised profusely. I slapped my forehead repeatedly to mime my foolishness for those who didn’t understand English. I promised it would not happen again. Both woman and neighbour continued to talk. I wondered what was still unresolved. I apologised again. That had no effect. Eventually, my neighbour told me that it was no problem. We all went outside. I continued to hang my laundry on the clothesline. Another neighbour approached me pointing to the laundry and speaking in rapid Khmer. Again I smiled awkwardly and responded with: “Kn’yon meun yeung dtay.” My neighbour overheard again. He explained that she wanted to know if I was married. It seems the only possible excuse for my ineptitude would be if I simply didn’t have a woman to do these things for me, silly man that I am. “Baat, dtay. Kn’yon meun gaa dtay,” “No, I’m not married,” I responded.

A bit embarrassed, I went inside to unwind, using my new rag to scrub the floors. About half an hour later, a young girl in a baseball cap and a middle-aged woman came knocking at my door. The woman introduced herself as “Borng srey Sray Han,” Srey Hem’s elder sister. Srey Hem is the name of my neighbour’s daughter ten year old daughter. With our limited ability to communicate, we’ve become friends. I was pretty sure she has a sister living elsewhere. I invited both of them in, wondering what had prompted the visit. They both walked straight to the rear of the house and Srey Hem’s sister pointed to the stain. The young girl, acting as interpreter, explained that the neighbours were complaining about a leak.

“Yes,” I said, “I know. I just talked to them about it.” A middle-aged bare-chested man walked in, dressed only in a Sarong. He spoke with Srey Hem’s elder sister. I wondered what was happening. Again, I explained about the laundry. Much apologizing and forehead slapping followed. Still no one seemed satisfied. The girl asked me about my other leak. “Other leak?” I responded. She moved aside my garbage can to reveal that the plastic bag had not only leaked, but dribbled a large puddle of decomposing mango, banana, and assorted nasty juices onto my floor and into my neighbour’s flat. Again, my forehead took a beating. In the meantime, the girl grabbed my new floor rag and begun earnestly scrubbing away. “Well, that’s it,” I thought, “It’s definitely not being used as a shirt ever again.” In the meantime, the man began shouting at the little girl walking about and stomping exaggeratedly on the floor.

I felt bad for the girl. As it turns out, my neighbours below were being annoyed by the sound of my walking. I promised to try to be quieter and to cause no more leaks. Everyone, including the irate sarong-clad man from the flat below, said that it was no problem. I was starting to get a knot in my stomach from the constant embarrassment.

Eventually, they left. I continued cleaning. I went to read a book to unwind. Just as I sat down, the phone rang. The call was coming from my boss’ phone. “Hello Adam, this is Srey Hem.” Srey Hem, coincidentally, is also the name of Mike’s wife, whose elder sister, the woman I just met, I now realize, is my landlady. “I heard there was a problem.” I again explained about the leak and apologized repeatedly. This time at least, my forehead remained unharmed as Srey Hem speaks fluent English and wasn’t there to see me hit myself anyway. I hung up and went to take a nap, waiting for the call from Canada:

“Hi Adam, this is Russ [EWB’s Overseas Operations Director]. It’s 1:00am here. Why exactly is Mike calling me from Cambodia to tell me about a complaint from your neighbours…?”

Thankfully, it never quite escalated that far.

How Long Since I Found Jesus?

A few days after I started working here at IDE, my friend Phalla, the receptionist, mentioned that she was going to the country that weekend with friends. She invited me along. The plan fell through. The conversation went something like this:

Adam – A
Phalla – P
Adam’s Brain – B

A - “Are we going to the country this weekend?”
P - “No no. Sorry. Cannot do this weekend. I go to the country this weekend with friends. Maybe next weekend you come? We help children?”
A - “Help children? Help children how?
P - “Give food. Make show.”
B - “Aha! A chance to help poor orphans in the countryside.”
A - “Sounds good.”
P - “Friends from this group all Christian. This is okay?”
B – “This might be a little awkward. Still, working with orphan children is still good work.”
A – “No problem. I am still happy to help.”

The trip finally happened last weekend. As it turns out, this group was very Christian. They were also very young. I knew something was amiss when Phalla asked me to fill out a form and asked for the name of my pastor and my parent’s permission. Arriving on the bus that weekend, I felt awkward and out of place. I began reading my Khmer grammar book, trying to teach myself how to read and write. The boy sitting next to me started to help. When we arrived Phalla and I were having a new conversation:

P – “You learn Khmer.”
A – “Yes. Your friend is a good teacher.”
P – “He’s good teacher. If you want, he teach you English, yes? When are you free?”
B – “That was a mite forceful. How do I back out of this gracefully…?”

We arrived at what appeared to be a small church with a large outdoor yard. A tent had been setup, the kind that one usually associates with revivalist meetings in the Southern US hosted by a pastor whose name begins with Brother and end with either ‘love’, ‘-iah’, or ‘-iel’. I was assigned with Phalla to the stage decorating group. My ready-made nametag said: “Ädam Kaufman, Stage Decoration, Sex: Female.” No one else’s nametag mentioned sex. I don’t know why.

There were people working as “Cameramen,” “Entertainment,” and “Supplies.” As it turns out, I had agreed to participate in a membership drive for an evangelical Christian group. Oops. Nearly a thousand children from nearby schools, some Christian, many not, were coming for the entertainment. There were hip-hop dancers, English language lessons, a raffle, and many prizes. Several local food vendors set up shop nearby. Phalla bought some baked salted snails, which several of us ate by using a thorn to pull the snail out of its shell. At first I felt like this was a novelty; then I realized the French had beaten me to the punch.

Several men were busily assembling a stage just in front of the tent, using logs and 2x4s. I began inflating balloons and quickly made friends by helping others to practice their English and French. Once the stage was built, I helped to decorate. Along the way, several more fun conversations between Phalla, me, and my brain occurred.

P – “You look tired.”
A – “I am. I could not sleep last night.”
P – “You can not sleep last night. Do you sleep alone? Maybe it’s because you sleep alone.”
B – “What the heck?! That doesn’t sound very conservatively Khmer, or even Christian for that matter. Relax. Figure it out…”
A – “Do you sleep alone?”
P – “No I sleep with friends.”
B – “Now we’re getting somewhere!” ;)

As it turns out, she was referring to her housemates from her all Christian dorm. This led to her asking if I wanted a roommate. I’m still looking to integrate as much as possible here. I’ve been keeping my ears open for some time for an opportunity to find a Khmer housemate who could maybe also double as a cultural informer...

P – “I have a friend. He good to sleep with.”
A – “Okay…”
P – “Don’t trust Khmer boys. They many bad people. But he is good person. He has Jesus. Others don’t. He can stay with you. Can not pay though. Okay?”
B – “That was a mite forceful again. Perhaps I should try for someone less earnest. Again, how do I back out without causing offence…?”

Standing on Stage in Front of the Children

I spent most of the afternoon making friends, teaching English, and learning Khmer. To the usual basic questions of “What is your name?” “Where do you come from?” and “Tell me about your family,” was added a new one: “How long do you have Jesus?” I felt like an awkward interloper when they asked this question. Between my awkwardness and our mutual lack of vocabulary, to my shame I responded the first time with, “A long time.” This seemed okay for them. The second time, trying to be more honest, I responded with “Not very long.” Most of my audience were the only Christian converts in their family. I tried explaining that my family was Jewish as a way of leading them towards the fact that I wasn’t Christian. The conversations went something like this:

C - Christian

C - “What is Jewish?”
A – “It is a different religion. Here you have Christian, Buddhist, Chinese, and Muslim. Jewish also is different.”
C – “Okay but you have Jesus Christ.”
A – “Actually no. Jewish people also have the Bible but we believe only the parts before Jesus. We believe in God, yes, but we don’t believe in Jesus.”

For them, this did not compute. No one understood. How can you have one God without having Jesus? The conversation would go elsewhere and eventually I would be asked again, “How long you have Jesus?” I’ve since met other Khmer Christians, some of whom spoke excellent English. No one seems to understand about the Jewish thing. I did manage to communicate the concept a bit by saying that it was the religion in Israel. They understood that part. It would seem the Zionists had a point in saying that peoples and religions are instinctively tied to nations…

Along the way, I learned two surprising things. These weren’t all children. The reason they looked so young was chronic malnutrition. A few were my age. A few were older. I also learned that not all of the participants were Christian. I made friends with two girls, Sreyna and Sovanly who told me that they were both Buddhist but living at the Christian school so as to get a good education. I’ve noticed that though the Christians here are only 1% of the population, they seem to make up a very disproportionate number of the educated and professional class.

That night, back in Phnom Penh, I was invited me to join them for Khmer New Years games. We ran, stood, and laughed in the middle of the street playing games that would have worked well at any children’s camp. I nearly gave myself a black eye playing the Khmer equivalent of Duck Duck Goose. Once a clutz, always a clutz no?