A New Journey

After 28 plane rides, 8 road trips, 4 boat rides, 1 electric bike and countless tuk-tuks, I land safely back in San Francisco to begin “normal” life again. And as all of you can attest to, life in America is anything but normal. Everything seems slightly out of sorts - I can’t figure out why everyone is so busy or why there is so much packaging on all of my food when I go to the supermarket or how everything is so clean and tidy and the air is crystal clear, yet we shower everyday? But I am sure in just a few weeks time, this will all seem normal to me.

But hopefully driving a car won’t seem normal, I’m buying an electric scooter. Or waking up, rolling over and grabbing my blackberry will never seem normal again. And my new job will prove to be as inspiring and exciting and un-normal as the last months have been – I’m counting on it. And if not, well, I’ll just keep searching until I find something that is...and I will never lose gratitude for having that "choice."

Thanks again for coming on this journey with me, many of you have asked for more photos so here you go.

New Venue, Same Village

Modern times in the West have often been accused of breaking up our families and villages. With the increase in walmarts, mobility, suburbanization and the “self” many have commented that we no longer walk down the street to meet with our butcher or walk across the street to chat with our neighbor and we spend more time on cell phones or at the gym than with our loved ones having a real connection.

Perhaps there is some truth there. In my travels through villages without all of these modern accoutrements, they do seem to have a more obvious connection to each other – spending extra time chatting with the banana seller at the market, visiting at the temple, living under one roof with three sometimes four generations.

But maybe its just the obviousness of the connection? An old friend of mine who lives in Denver received a call a few weeks ago that all of us hope we never receive. His wife, pregnant with their second child, found out she had just tested positive for either stage 3 or 4 diffuse large b-cell lymphoma. He jumped on the next plane back to Denver from Washington D.C. with the emotional support of strangers along the way. As a seasoned writer, he decided to start a blog – so he didn’t have to relay the same nightmares over and over, so friends and family could have a venue to share their support, so they could connect.

The writing is beautiful - raw and real, comments spanning the globe from family, friends, friends of friends, complete strangers. And maybe its not the local butcher or chatting with out neighbor across the street, but the same village energy is there. In the face of tragedy and grief there is love and support and rebuilding….the village may be destroyed by war or drought or persecution or injustice, but across the world the village comes together to rebuild.

Same-Same (But Different)

In Southeast Asia, “same-same” is a common response to most westerners. Answering questions like “what time do you close” or “is there a better room” or “thank you.” And as far as I can tell, it means “yes” and “no” and “yes…but no, but I hope you don’t find out that yes meant no.”

During my e-mail exchange with the Room to Read team in Cambodia, I tried to get numerous questions answered before I arrived. What were their current needs? Did they have Internet? Do they want training on the software I donated a year ago? How many teachers? Did they want me to do something similar to India’s training? Most of the responses were essentially “same-same.”

After a few days with Ratana, and numerous conversations in broken English (as I don’t know Khmer), I discovered a few more things. Ratana has a degree in information technology and his job includes computer maintenance for all 22 computer labs (over 500 computers), computer teaching, computer security, network maintenance, pretty much – you name it, he does it. It took me a few more days to realize the software I donated had disappeared (all he had was one CD of the 500 or so donated), there was absolutely no Internet in the schools, only a few of the teachers knew English and the primary curriculum was Microsoft Word and Excel basics as that is all they can teach in 6 months for 2 hours a week when the students are 3 to a computer. Oh, and the teachers were already trained in Microsoft Word and Excel.

I was at a loss, and so was Ratana. As I said before, volunteering can be hit or miss. And this was a miss. Ratana decided that the teachers needed a refresher on Word and Excel and hoped to do an introduction to PowerPoint. More pressing though was training in computer security, maintenance and networking. These teachers were the computer teachers, the English teachers, sometimes the math teachers and also the IT folks. You know, the one you call when the screen turns blue? In Cambodia, the “IT guy” doesn’t exist. Its up to Ratana and the teachers to keep everything humming. And I was not their girl (or guy or whatever).

And so Ratana and I spent a week together and all he got out of it was some PowerPoint training, that he probably could have done himself. And I got the rest – inspiration from Ratana’s cheerful approach to our obvious mismatch, meeting incredible teachers, dinner at a local restaurant I never could have found, conversations on what it was like to be the first person in his family to finish school and go to university and not be a farmer.

But hopefully he got something too. Meeting his 4th Westerner. Understanding women can lead. Seeing a vision after computer literacy, when a computer becomes a teaching tool, not the teaching objective. Hopefully.

Family Time

My parents always put a strong focus on “family time.” Turning the TV off, playing a game, eating a sit down dinner together. It drove me nuts when I was younger.

But now I love it. And there is nothing like family time in Southeast Asia to get to know my mother in a whole new way. With our family and work and friends and holiday preparations literally a world away – for better or for worse – our layers seem to melt away. And it’s definitely for better.

I don’t think I will forget the image of her driving in Cambodian rush hour on an electric moped with hundreds of Khmer motorists swarming around her. Or her question, in all seriousness “do you think the Khmers thought the world was round or flat during the Angkor period?” Or her response to the hundreds of peddlers who call out “Hello Madame!” Her response was always, even 50 times a day an enthusiastic “Hello!”

And I could learn all over again what it was like to have five brothers. Or her favorite age of raising children. Or how to be married for almost 40 years.

No Trickle-Down the Road

All three Room to Read computer labs I visited in Siem Reap lost their electricity while I was there – despite the fact that all of the hotels in the area were humming with air conditioning and satellite TV. So I decided to meet with my hotel manager to ask if he would consider putting a program together to ask tourists to donate to a generator for the schools, and the hotel would match it.

“You see, tourists will want to give. Many tourists come and want to help Cambodia, you could ask them to donate to the school to buy a generator,” I tried to cajole him out of the blank stare.

“Yes, yes. Schools are dark at night without a generator but no problem during the day,” blank stare now moving to confusion.

“Yes sir. But it is important to have the computers work in the day when the students are there.”

“Angkor High School has computers?” confusion now moves to doubt. The government doesn’t provide computers, they have it slated on their agenda for 2010 – in the meantime its up to the NGOs to provide them, and from what I can tell, only Room to Read does.

“Yes, that is what I said earlier. That is why a generator is most important. More up-time for the computers will give students more access and thus increase their employability for you –”

“I don’t think Angkor High School has computers.”

I tried to invite him to come to the high school with me, adding “If you have a program for schools, your hotel will be set apart. You see, I don’t have loyalty to your hotel. I will go to other hotels. But if I know you are giving to the community and helping by a generator, I will recommend you to other Americans. You can put the program on your web-site and let travel agents know and –“

“You want to help us redo our web-site?”

I knew this couldn’t be that much of a language barrier, so after ten more minutes I gave up and thanked him for his time.

Later that evening over dinner I relayed the conversation to Ratana, the Room to Read Computer Director. He was most amused.

“What did he say in response?” Ratana asked.

I tried to do my best to explain the concept of “giving me a run around.”

Ratana laughed, “Yes that is what I thought. I don’t think the hotel or business help. This is up to government to do.”

But the government isn’t doing it. And the students at Hunsen Wat Svay High School, who now have 3 months of computer training with four to a computer (as the 3,512 students – only 815 are female – all need a turn), who’s province is declared the poorest in Cambodia where families subsist on less than $1 per day, won’t have the skills to work in the fancy hotels that line their streets.

Healing, Cambodia Style

I think I’ve chatted with a couple hundred Cambodians so far – combining my school visits and teacher trainings and tuk-tuk rides and moto rides and just walking down the street. Every single one has a wide smile, kind words, and most want to know what I think of Cambodia.

And I respond, “Cambodia is so beautiful. The people are so beautiful.” And they beam with pride, making them even more beautiful. Which is so hard for me to understand. I would be pissed and angry and resentful at the whole karma wheel spinning me off in the wrong direction for the last few decades. But there is no bitterness in our conversations, just pride.

My guide book tells me that of the 13 million Cambodians, 96% are Buddhists, 50,000 are monks and 30 are psychiatrists. Maybe there is something to this? This may sound a little brangelinesque, but come here. This place is incredible.

Rebuilding

If I was born a few years earlier in Phnom Penh, Cambodia instead of Texas, USA, my life may have gone something like this…

When I was born, fire would come down from the sky onto surrounding villages from American secret forces trying to attack the Viet Cong who had moved into Cambodia. Maybe my family survived. A few years later the Khmer Rouge would begin to control Cambodia, declaring it “Year 0.” We would be forced out of our home into work camps in the country side as the Khmer Rouge instituted a Marxist agrarian nation. So would all of our neighbors as Phnom Penh was reduced from 1 million to 60,000 citizens in a few months. In a little bit of time, I would be separated from my family, my parents would not survive; as a lawyer and a teacher, they, along with the doctors, would be the first to be executed. I would be brainwashed into fighting for the Khmer Rouge as children were the “start of the nation” and properly equipped with military training.

Maybe I would make it, only to possibly starve to death. In 1978 the Vietnamese invasion fortunately ended the Khmer Rouge genocide of its own people, but unfortunately caused a massive famine for a few years.

And the next twenty or so years would be questionable. I missed all of my education as there was not schooling at that time, so I would probably end up as a farmer’s wife with some children who hopefully survived the dismal birth rate…I wouldn’t know if the civil war ever really ended as there has been political unrest up until the end of the century...

In some ways, Pol Pot did get his wish. Cambodia is starting over, not at “Year 0,” but at year 20 or 1997. They missed the Asian economic boom of the 80’s and 90’s that accelerated their neighbors standard of living. An entire generation is missing, the Khmer Rouge murdered about 2 million Khmers – approximately 20% of the population. And those who did live had no education, and their children had an inept education as the Khmer Rouge killed all of the teachers and destroyed the curriculum.

In my training class of 15 teachers almost everyone is under 30 with a few over 50 and just one teacher who is 40.

“I feel very, very luck. I do not die from Pol Pot. I do not die from no food. All of my friends, no families, no food and no school. But me, I have school before. Now I have good job teaching mathematics and computers and wife and children. We have hope. Khmer very strong people.”

Mom Goes to Nam.

I remember having some apprehension after my initial exclamation “Of course!” when my mother asked me if she could join me for a few weeks in Vietnam. The last time we shared every meal, moment and sleep for longer than a few hours was when I was about 8 weeks old.

Her interest was mostly driven by how much Vietnam influenced her life path. Her husband was drafted in 1969 during his junior year of college and instead of going to Vietnam, he decided to take his only other legal option, a longer (safer) path – enlist in the Air Force, finish college and law school, and ultimately enlist for five years. My mother and my first flight was aboard an Air Force plane to Istanbul, I was six weeks old and we would stay for two years.

And here we were a few decades later landing together in Ho Chi Minh. We hired a tour guide, Khai, to take us to the Cu Chi tunnels where 16,000 Vietnamese lived underground in a 250 kilometer network of tunnels located at the end of the Ho Chi Minh trail. Khai greeted us in the morning with a brief history on Vietnam…

“Vietnam is very strong country. One thousand years of Chinese occupancy, one hundred year of French occupancy, twenty year of America occupancy and we won. Now we are free. Vietnam War against Americans very devastating. Many, many American’s die. Very sad. 58,128 American men die. 58,128 American wives and girlfriends with no husband or boyfriend. 58,128 families with no son. 58,128 children with no father. And Vietnam sad too. 3 million civilian Vietnamese killed, 1 million North Vietnamese soldiers killed, ½ million South Vietnamese soldiers killed.”

More than ten percent of their population killed? I can’t believe these people even let us off the plane, let alone welcome us with huge smiles? Khai assures us later on in the day that many Vietnamese welcome the Americans – the American dollar combined with 65% of the population being under 30 helps. But he does push my mother a little…

“Does America not learn from Vietnam War? Why America not leave Iraq? Have they forgotten American soldier deaths? Vietnamese civilian deaths? Why memory so short?”

I found it unduly flattering that he thought our fearless leader even had a memory, I guess Bush does have some good PR folks out there still.