Crossing the border into Cambodia from Vietnam, I did not expect 4
large casinos to be the first thing I would notice, but that's exactly
what happened. It made me wonder who these large casinos catered
to...was it locals? Or Vietnamese? Or maybe expats. I still don't really
know, but it was weird. The rest of the bus ride into Phnom Penh
reminded me of my time in East Africa. The architecture was a little
different, everything was a tad greener, and of course the road was well
paved, but the rural areas are very similar. I made it into the city in
the late afternoon and was met by a swarm of tuk tuk and motorbike
drivers offering me a ride to wherever I was going. This was very
familiar. There was one that spoke English really well, and though I
told him many times that I didn't need a ride, when my coordinator
showed up on his motor bike he ended up telling us to use this guy's tuk
tuk to follow him to our homestay. The tuk tuks here consist of a
motorbike with a carriage attached that seats about 4 people on
benches.
The next day was our orientation, and I was able to
meet several of the other volunteers that will be working in the city.
We had some in class cultural and Khmer lessons, and they told us what
to expect and how to make the most of our time here. The second day of
orientation involved a city tour, where they showed us some highlights
and landmarks in the city, but we didn't actually get to go inside a lot
of them. I guess I'll have to make my own trips to see Toul Sleng (S21
prison) and the National Museum. I also saw the Olympic Stadium, which
is ironic because Cambodia has never held any Olympic games, but it was
impressive nonetheless. I got some really good photos of baboons at a
Pagoda in the city as well.
After getting a few last minute
things at the market and getting set up with a local cell phone, it was
time to settle into the life of a temporary Cambodian. I got to know my
host family a bit better and enjoyed the meals they prepared for me.
It's quite a big family living in the house, with 2 daughters, 1 son,
the mother and father, one aunt and one nephew. It's an impressive home
stay for Cambodian standards, and I was definitely not expecting to get
my own room with ensuite bathroom, a communal living room with tv/dvd
player, wifi access throughout the house...and even a laundry machine!
After spending almost three months hand washing my clothes and scraping
my knuckles raw in Kenya, this was the greatest luxury. OK, so I'm not
being completely honest, as most of the time I paid locals to wash my
laundry for me in Kenya, but those 4 or 5 times I spent kneeling over a
wash bucket were excruciating!
My first three days of
placement were very interesting...well the first day was only an hour
long because no one was there and the coordinator was on vacation - so
they asked me to come back the next day, once they had prepared things
for me to do. I went back the next day and started helping them
translate their NGO statute into passable English (I have the original
saved in my gmail in case anyone is curious about how terrible the
English was on the first one.) I paid a visit to two of the schools that
PIO (People Improvement Organization) supports, as well as one
orphanage. Pulling into a landfill site teeming with garbage and seeing
obviously malnourished children, women and men picking through it
to try to scrape by was heart-wrenching. The first school was built from
the remainder of the walls of an older building, and had tarps for a
rooftop. The kids were all happy to see me walk in, and stood up to
greet me in unison. They said "Good morning Mr Scott, how are
you?" to which I replied "Good morning, I am fine, how are you?". They
waited there after saying they were fine, until the teacher told them
they could sit down. At that point, they half-yelled "Thank you
teacher!" and sat down, once again, in unison. They gave me the ever-appreciated smiles, high-fives and handshakes, and couldn't wait to show
off their English language skills. I'm starting to realize that kids in
developing countries are very much alike, and appreciate their
education so much more than we do back home.
My visit to the
orphanage was similar, with children smiling, greeting me, and playing
amongst themselves. I met the head teacher of the school, who I chatted
with for a while. She asked me a very important question at one point,
and said "how does all of this make you feel?" Honestly, in all my
experiences with volunteering, I have never really been asked such a
deep question, and certainly not by someone who was far from being a
native English speaker. I kind of choked up just trying to think of an
answer. How do you say both happy and sad at the same time? Ambivalent
or bittersweet just don't really cut it. On the one hand, I see poor
children and families with no support from a social welfare system or
their government. On the other hand, I see people from all over the
world and, more importantly, many Cambodians doing the best they can to
ensure that these people can enjoy the most basic and fundamental rights
a human should have. At the end of the day, it's the people that I meet
in these situations that keep me coming back to this type of work. If
they can get by with virtually nothing, stay positive and manage to keep a
smile on their face, then I should never have to right to complain or
take anything that I have for granted.
