Short visits

My father came to visit me in Cambodia starting on Sunday afternoon; he left today, mid-day on Wednesday. It was wonderful to have him here, but terribly short. It was the first time he had been outside of North America (i.e the US and Canada) in 35 years. I told him that I was proud of him for traveling outside of the US. He said he was happy to come and that he was proud of me and the work I was doing.

If I were starting international travels, Cambodia would not be the place I would start. Tourism infrastructure is great. My Dad and his friend got to stay at my hotel. We ate somewhat luxurious meals and hired a driver to take us to see the Angkor Temple. The counterpoint to that is Cambodia itself is quite poor. The people have low incomes; general infrastructure like electricity, roads, and water are usually non-exsistent; and for many the prospects for the future are sparse.



If you can get past that, Cambodians will amaze you. They are hard-working people, with seemingly indefagitable spirits. Furthermore, the smiles of old and young alike welcome any foreigner who searches it out.

My father got to see this aspect of Cambodia. I can't say for sure how he would describe the experience, other than to say it was impacting. When we returned to the hotel he described our visit as emotional, which I find meaningful for a man who is usually reserved.

Our first visit took us to Puok district, which is a very poor district in Cambodia. I had not been there before. The school we were visiting was a shock to see. Most schools are solid structures, but this was a shack protected by a few palms. Inside, one hundred and ten children patiently waited for us. They greeted us with loud, cheerful voices that made me feel like an all-star.



Our purpose there was to photograph each of the children for a few former guests who are trying to build a new school. In addition, two of the guest on the trip brought food and some school supplies for each child. The overall mood was joyous, but internally I always realize the limitations of our goodwill. I think that my father also recognized this limitation as well.




There is an incredible amount of work to be done, but limited resources and capacity to accomplish it. Furthermore, the ideals I want to see occur could take years or decades to come to fruition. Coming to this realization is often frustrating.

Likewise, my father's trip was somewhat frustrating. Having him here was wonderful, but it was a heavy reminder of all the people who are not here and that I want to see. A reminder that you cannot be in two places at once; that making a decision to do one thing means the inability to do other things.

On taking my father to the airport and saying goodbye, I felt a bit like crying. I cannot say if I felt that way because he was going or because I was staying. In truth, it does not matter. I am here and I am determined to do as much as I can.

There are a lot of smiles still to see.

Self-fulfilling

I get asked a number of questions repeatedly. I have been asked probably a couple dozen times if "in America, do you eat rice?" To which I reply, "yes, but not everyday or for every meal. Probably once or twice a week." I know why they ask the question. They are amazed that anyone could stop eating rice for many days at a time. Here, rice is a way of life.

Lately, the question I am asked is "Are you unhappy?" This is a strange question, and it puts me off balance. I am also asked "Are you happy when you go to the village?" Both these questions seem to be directed at whether or not I am enjoying myself. However, I am not sure exactly why my staff asks them.

In the US, we usually ask "How are you doing?" To which most people respond "fine." For some reason, the question "Are you happy?" gives me pause. I have to take a moment to reflect on whether I am truly happy or not.

What is odd is that I am exceptionally happy with life in general. There are only a few things which I wish to change (including romantic status). In large, I am immensely satisfied with what I do and where I am. I have a challenging job that allows me creativity and opportunity to explore the idea of improving the lives of others. I gain great satisfaction from my success, and I gain great knowledge from my mistakes and limitations. Furthermore, I enjoy my environment, the people I work with, and the privileges that come with being a somewhat wealthy foreigner.

Still, the question I have been asked is not "Are you happy?" but "Are you unhappy?" This leads me to believe that others think that I am not happy. In turn, I start to believe I may in fact be unhappy.

Like telling people that the economy is in recession, or some minority is bad at math tests, or that some one is ugly, even if these things are not true, people believe them and pretty soon they are true.

To counter this line of questioning, I have to go above saying something like "Yes, I am happy" to say something around the tune of "Actually, I have never been happier working than I am here." I can't say for sure if that is true, but it certainly feels like it. I suppose the most true answer is, I am happy for now, but I cannot say what the future will hold.

Holidays

Today is the Jewish New Year, so to anyone who celebrates: I hope the new year is a sweet and wonderful one for you. On Friday, I got to participate in a sort of Jewish New Year's celebration. There were no prayer books and no one really knew what to say or sing. Our Israeli host said the blessing over wine, we sang a few non-religious songs about peace, ate some apples with honey and other sweet food, and just hung around and talked. Very laid back and altogether a good way to bring in the new year.

Meanwhile, country-wide, the holiday of P'chum Ben day is being celebrated. During this 15-day period of the Khmer lunar calendar, Cambodians go to the pagoda and pray to all the souls and spirits that, due to bad karma, have not been reincarnated and are stuck in limbo/hell. Everyone brings food to the pagoda to feed the spirits. I am not sure if the food pacifies them because they are very hungry or angry. I suppose if you were trapped in hell without any food you'd probably be both.

Cambodians pray that the spirits do not remain in hell and that they do not torment the people still living. Cambodians have a special obligation to their own ancestors, so as a result, they try to go to the pagoda where their ancestors were burned to get a more direct line of communication. If you are a good Cambodian Buddhist, you will travel to many pagodas in the hope of not giving any ancestor the cold shoulder. Since P'chum Ben day happens only once a year, people go to great lengths "to speak with their grandmother."

Once the spirits have had their chance to eat the food, the monks claim the rest. But just like the spirits are unable to finish most of the food, the monk pass most of the food along as well. So after you contribute some food, the monks usually invite you to stay and have something to eat. It's not necessarily the food you brought, but in the big Karmic wheel, everyone gets to eat.

Being so far away from home, I have the tendency to simplify holidays to their basic form. Most holidays can be described in the following way: The past is important; your ancestors are important; so let us gather together and celebrate the present; let's toast to the future; everybody grab something to eat. (Except Halloween, which goes straight to the last part.)

I wish I could celebrate the New Year or P'chum Ben day with all my friends and family. Best wishes to all and happy holidays.

"What am I doing in Cambodia?" or "What I am doing in Cambodia."

To the few readers of this blog. I am no longer in Thailand, but Cambodia. I have been here for one month, working at a hotel named Shinta Mani. My job here is Director of Community-based Activities. At the moment, I am trying to compose a newsletter to send to all the past donors of the projects. Here is one of the articles that I completed. I hope that it explains some of the things I do.

"Driving along the road to Angkor Wat, I am riding in a van with some important people, including the owner of Shinta Mani hotel and a few potential investors. In the van behind us there are more important people, including the managing director and general manager of Shinta Mani. These people have importance, because two days prior to this ride I was hired as the Director of Community-based Activities for Shinta Mani. These higher-ups are the ones that make my job and these programs possible.

This is my first visit to the village and in a short amount of time I am expected to be an authority on everything related to our village and school programs. For now, I am simply in awe of the sights around me.

A paved road past Angkor Wat and the Bayon, leads to a dirt road proclaiming to be the entrance to Angkor Thom district. I am told that a joint-venture with a Japanese group expanded and reformed the road. However, huge divots in the road lead me to disbelief. Our driver deftly steers to avoid the obstacles. Thirty minutes later, he performs another deft feat by crossing a weak wooden bridge only a few centimeters wider than our van.

Across the bridge, we are led to an area full of brush. Here, land is cheaper and families came out in search of new places to start farms and homes. The family we visited had purchased the land 14 months ago. On a plot of land of 40 by 40 meters, the family began by planting a few items for subsistence consumption.

Their reputation as hard-working family was already recognized by their community. As a result, in January of this year, the family was approached by Shinta Mani to be recipients of a water-well. In the time since, the family has capitalized on their new resource by planting long beans, winter melon, and cucumbers from seeds provided with their well. The family continued to expand into sugar cane, a crop that requires regular watering, but yields about $0.15 per stem. This year they were able to make about $150 dollars from their harvest. Even more farsighted, the family has planted trees for custard apples, mangoes, and jackfruit, some of which do not bear fruit for four years.




The family was encouraged with donations of school supplies for their three children, as well as a bicycle to ensure that they could get to and from school. In addition, the bicycle allows the family to reach markets to sell some of their crops. After 7 months of hard work, this family became the 69th to receive a house from a Shinta Mani donor. When I visited with the higher-ups, only the foundation had been laid.

Within three weeks, the house was near completion. Finishing touches were added to the toilet and septic systems adjoined to the outside of the house. The family is very excited to be moving into their new home.

On a recent visit to the family, I asked how Shinta Mani had changed their lives. The father, Hai Lai, remarked that, “when I got the well, I knew I could make the family better. Now, I can make a big farm for my family.” With the farm performing well, Hai Lai looks to the future. He says that he does not want to stop farming, but he would like to own a business as well and start selling items in the market. Looking across the faces of his children, Hai Lai states, ‘we have, but not enough.”

Driving back to the hotel, on that first village visit, I could tell that the investors and owners were impressed with the programs. I too was impressed. A few donations had enabled a family to grow to a standard of living they thought was impossible 15 months earlier. Hai Lai’s story is not one often seen or heard by the average visitor to Cambodia, nor is it a story usually made possible through donations from an unimposing 18-room hotel."

Feel free to make comments about the lack of grammar or flow.

June 25th

June 25th -

Today is our last day in the village. Having already exhausted our work at the school site, we moved onto a single day project of planting trees. Were we working in a village area around a temple. Before we started work, we said a few word about the importance of trees, not only to this area, but also to a larger worldwide awareness about humanity's impact on the environment. This sentiment was restated by the abbot of the temple, who probably had a greater impression on the boy and girl scouts and the villagers who had volunteered to work.

Like other environmental day projects I have participated in, this one required us to clear the area of plants before introducing new ones. I am used to clearing non-native species. Here we were removing shrub and brush that was unable to stop the erosion of the river bank. In its place, we planted fruit trees more able to the task, and capable of providing additional nourishment to the people.

Once again, our intentions were confounded by our lack of supplies. With the large amount of people, the work was being accomplished with alacrity. It was mesmerizing to watch orange-robed monks hack away at the tropical shrubbery. Tools to clear and dig were passed from one person to another. After a few hours, we ran out of area to plant trees. We traveled to another plot, but this area was already cleared so the planting required even less time. Nonetheless, with so many people working at once, it was easy to feel accomplished looking across the areas of planted trees, even if each person only completed a small fraction of that job.

When there was no more work to complete, we said our goodbyes and headed off to visit an orphanage. Thinking back, I am not sure that I had ever been to an orphanage before. From my sampling of one, I can say that they are both wonderful and frustrating places to go.

This one was particularly well-run. A neo-humanist woman from Italy had dedicated the last twenty years of her life to orphaned children, mostly immigrants from Burma. The orphanage held 400 children, most of whom had den-mothers that looked after the children in exchange for food, training in their sewing center, and education in Thai and English language classes. The orphanage had a weak playground, but a great sports field. There were orchards of fruit and an animal center. However, the animals were only keep as companions and as reminders of humanity's interaction with nature. Everyone adhered to a strict vegetarian diet. Additionally, they were building a new meditation center. Why an orphanage would need a meditation center, but I assume it is for the neo-humanist who come here to see the work being done.

To add to all the wonderful work being done, the children looked exceptionally happy. Most people could not resist their laughter and calls to play. As we were being toured around the facility, the children already home from school tagged along. Some were being carried by group members. One exceptionally strong volunteer even tried to carry two seven year old children.

However, I restrained from this, which is part of the frustration of visiting an orphanage. Children look for attention and affection from whatever sources are available. These children were getting a glimmer of this from their den mother and the director, who has been a mother to probably over a thousand children. However, the immediateness of these children onto our arms or shoulders or backs speaks to the need for more personal attention. To give them that attention and then walk out of their lives seemed exceptionally difficult, not just for their fragile knowledge of loving guardians, but for my own beliefs about the sanctity of such things.

Everyone expressed their happiness at being able to visit. The next morning we returned to make some purchases at their store. After visiting sweatshops and places with weak labor standards, it was a relief to be able to buy items that were made in a fair and equitable manner. I bought two ten dollar shirts and a thirty-dollar blanket. Quite expensive for Thai prices, but all the money was going back into the orphanage's operations. Plus, the blanket is amazingly soft, and I have gone to the extent of dubbing it “the orphan blanket.” I even look forward to returning to truly cold climates for the chance to curl up in this blanket.

For me, the orphanage visit helped center the activities that we had been doing for the past two weeks. We came, we did work, and in the end we probably helped some people and did some work that otherwise might not have taken place. However, the work and projects and work was incomplete. Along the same vein, we came to the orphanage, we played with some children and we learned. Likely, the most helpful thing we did was shop extensively in their shop. Still, the help was not complete.

This is the lesson that I take most fully from my volunteer work in Thailand. The work accomplished is necessary, but incomplete. By work, I mean the active participation in the process of development and individual empowerment. I believe this means being an active learner in the world around you, becoming a more ethical consumer and producer, and, on occasion, donating your time and/or wealth. None of these things are ever fulfilled completely, which is discouraging and refreshing at the same time. The thing I will cherish from this experience is the knowledge that the completeness of the work is not as important as its continuation.

June 24th

June 24th – Having exhausted our supplies a day ahead of schedule, the group leaders had come up with the idea of us teaching the Thai/Burmese elementary school students. Everyone seemed quite excited about the idea and in the evening people were clamoring for more time to prepare lessons. Everyone except me, I suppose.

I am not a confident teacher. I don't mind giving speeches; they are set and defined, and generally well-preped. I don't mind tutoring either; there is regular interaction and quality interaction with only a few students. My lack of confidence in teaching large groups comes in part because of my desire for learning to be fun, or at least not boring. I consider myself lucky because I find many forms of learning enjoyable. However, I know that many students are not lucky in this way.

Many of the other participants were coming up with elaborate lesson plans. Meanwhile, my partner, Laura, and I were considering math. Math is the international language after all. With only forty-five minutes to teach it seemed easier than anything that would involve translation. Plus, there are some fun math games, like “around the world.” (I take that back. “Around the world” is a terrible math game if you don't like math. I must have liked it because I was good at it.)

The first class we taught was a group of third graders. We began by introducing ourselves and then continued by asking a few students to tell us their name. Bad move. Those kids clammed up fast, and it was obvious that singling students to speak up was not going to be well received. Scratching ten minutes off of our mental lesson plan, we moved on to the rest of our sketchy plan which consisted mostly of math and a little bit about expressions and conversational English.

We went through numbers in English, which the students knew readily up to ten and less readily up to twenty. Using that range of integers, I wrote math problems upon the blackboard and we asked students to volunteer the answers. Like a vanishing act, their quick recitation of Arabic numeral is English disappeared.

I have heard that it is near impossible for people to perform mathematic calculations in anything other than their mother-tongue. From the faces of the students, it was clear that they had no problem with the calculations. The questions involved nothing more complex than a multiplication sign and they could say the answer in Thai. The problem was in translating to English.

In an attempt to keep things entertaining (and educational), we moved on to conversational English. However, our conversation plan had no interaction component, so it ended up being the two of us talking in what was probably incomprehensible American English. Then we tried expressions of the question “How are you?” This was also dismal due to our terrible visual aid of crappy chalk face drawings.

Exhausting our lesson plan with speed, we defaulted to a song we were hearing a few doors down, “Head, shoulders, knees, and toes.” The song was entertaining, but I couldn't think of anything except how horribly this lesson was going.

I thought about every substitute teacher that my former classmates had torn to shreds. That air of frightfulness and inexperience that make substitute teachers so ripe for sacrifice, we were perspiring it in buckets. A few more minutes of this and we would lose all semblance of being teachers.

In my own panic, I suggested we go back to math problems. This time instead of asking students to answer verbally, we would just ask the students to write the answer. It wasn't teaching, but it was easy and somewhat entertaining. Plus, it allowed us to regain the attention of the class.

Then Laura, my partner in inexperience, came up with a brilliant idea of letting students choose the victims of our math problems. Using an orange as a “hot potato” students quickly moved the fruit from desk to desk hoping not to be the one holding it when we called out “stop.” The game turned out to be quite entertaining and the last ten minutes flew by.

All in all, that first class was excruciatingly painful in its lack of preparedness, but each successive class became easier. We quickly learned that oranges lasted only a few minutes before becoming inedible and unusable. We also let the students start to write the next problem after answering a question.

We weren't even trying to teach new material. We were simply monitoring a game.

We watched as a class of first graders tried to outdo one another by making supposedly hard addition problems with more and more zeros trailing the leading digit. Students giggled and laughed. They shrieked when the “hot potato” landed on their desk, and furtively tried to pass it on to another student.

I doubt that they learned much new for the forty-five minutes that we took over their classrooms. Still, they had fun and I had fun, and maybe for some students that is not something that happens frequently.

June 23rd – Today we returned to the worksite. In my mind, I was still working out some of the things we saw on the previous day's excursions.

Over the weekend, the principal and the village head-man were also doing some work. They had called on community members for assistance on the project. Sixty people showed up and complete twice the amount of concrete that we laid.

In addition to paying to come out to Thailand we were also financing half of the project. Unfortunately the supplies for the other half of the project – the half that was to be completed after we left – were not yet available. Thus, we found ourselves running out of materials faster than anticipated.

By about two o'clock, we were finishing off the last of the concrete and were taking a break under a tree. A new member had joined our group on Friday. A very beautiful Thai woman named Sue was volunteering with us as a form of personal vacation. With her seamless English, she was taking over as a translator and guide.

Despite working with the regular laborers for several days, this was our first opportunity to ask and receive questions. We got to find out that many of them had been doing this sort of work for many years. They didn't own most of the tools they were using. In this case the school owned the tools, including the cement mixer. Perhaps most interesting was that the young workers although they had dropped out of high school had enrolled in trade schools. After hearing many stories of relative despair, it was encouraging to hear about the non-traditional school opportunities for these men.

However, the nicest thing said that day was that the laborers actually enjoyed working with us. In fact, they enjoyed working with us over the villagers from the weekend. When we asked why, they said it was because we were always smiling, we went to work with such energy, and we didn't complain or bicker (unlike some aforementioned people).

For most of our work time, I had assumed that at best we were a harmless nuisance to the laborer's regular schedule. After all, we took most of the cues through hand gestures and we frequently ran into one another and made other small mistakes. Meanwhile, they seemed to work without obvious error. Yet, here we were hearing that we were actually welcomed as a presence and uplifted their spirits.

With any volunteer work, it is difficult to measure the benefit achieved. That is especially true with this particular project. However, the good achieved from goodwill is something that can have ripples of impact for generations.