Give everything you are, even if its sound.

I have crossed back into Thailand, and again no questions were asked about my lack of an onward ticket out of the kingdom; just a quizzical look through the pages of my passport and a stamp in red ink: JUL 25 2008.

As I walked to awaiting transport with a small group of others making the same trip from Phnom Penh to Bangkok, some girls approached. They were of all different heights but only one size: tiny. They had umbrellas but some were without shoes. One of these little children was immediately at my side. Being only half my height, she took twice as many steps to match my pace and used her fingers to hold the handle which extended into a spider-framed orange canvas above my head. Across baking asphalt and almost no trees, she walked with me.

I immediately felt horrible. I knew what she was expecting.

It would take a heartless pig to ignore their pleas, but in turn it takes misappropriated passion to give them a dollar and walk out. Some tourists will say they have no money -- a horrible attempt at escape in my opinion -- but I cannot lie. You look into those almond eyes and downcast lips and lie. I don't believe these girls are fooled. They are smart. They have their tactics, but this does not change the heart of the matter. Whether or not they are begging for pimps or cruel parents, whether or not they spend their money on something most would deem insignificant, whether or not their pouting lips are forced, they are still begging children. They are barefoot, filthy, bug-eaten, snot-nosed, empty-bellied, kids. My heart allows me nothing more than, "no, I'm sorry."

I looked around for food, but I saw nothing; only heat, dust, and pavement. I looked for something to give, and then I remembered.

The shortest girl in the group, was standing across the way, puffing her cheeks with air and expelling it with the soft force of her short fingers. I looked in her direction, and mimicked her as best I could. Her head turned and she smiled. Then she moved. For a moment she disappeared behind a standing motorbike, and then there she was standing in front of me; smiling with tiny gaps in between new adult teeth. She waited staring at me with an open mouth. I filled my cheeks and made the sound again.

*PBLTTTTT!*

She puffed her tiny cheeks with a breath and forced it out with two equally tiny fists.

*PBLTTTT!*

We laughed.

The game continued until she showed me something new. Stacking her fingers, one behind the other, she contorted her hand and showed it to me, begging me to do the same. When I failed miserably she took my hand into hers and counted as she tried to stack my clumsy fingers in the same way. I laughed at my failure, and she giggled while trying to show me again as if I was missing a step in her instruction. She smiled each time I tried, until we moved on again. She had something to show me.

A garbage bag strap was hanging like jewelry around her neck and a tiny impression near her stomach showed that there was something on the end of that plastic string. She rolled up her shirt every so slightly to show me what was in hiding. In a tiny, clear plastic bag was a pile of miniature toy animals and two silver coins -- her possessions. There was six Thai Baht in her bag, but she wanted to show me her animals. She pulled out a handful. A purple monkey, a yellow lion, a blue bird, and a few others.

"Oh!" I said, fingering through the plastic molds and desperately trying to remember the Khmer names for each. But I couldn't think of anything and it was time to go. I began to stand up.

"Bye bye," she said.

As I sat down in the border shuttle van, she repeated it again: "bye bye."

With the sliding door open, I took a breath and pressed air from my cheeks one more time. She returned fire.

The door slammed shut, but she was still there; looking through the window, moving her head left and right to catch me in between seat shifting occupants. She waved her hand, and I saw her mouth those two words again and again; "bye bye."

I caught her eyes, waved, and we left.

People were stopped -- they were staring.

Whenever I finish teaching at Pek Vanna Foreign Language School, whenever a break occurs between 5:00-6:00 classes and 6:00-7:00 classes, there is a traffic jam. A mob of motorbikes, bicycles, and feet. In the madness my eyes lie to me. Flashes of color appear as hundreds when maybe there is only a hundred. Silky black ponytails swish through the air as young girls chat with each other from motorbikes. Young boys lead bicycles out of the gravel lot organized for their transportation alone and mount the pedals with a walking start. Everywhere there are faces, legs, arms, and book bags. Sky blue school uniforms from the preceding high school hours, and the latest imitation fashions for those who had time to change with the change of schools. I believe that every one of these students is passionate about learning, but the passion of freedom is overpowering, and chaos is birthed. This is the story every evening, but tonight was different.

People were stopped -- they were staring.

Usually I follow routine and catch a ride back to the pagoda where I eat dinner by 8:00. But tonight, I wanted to send an e-mail. Without having to ask, I was offered a ride by Mr. Narin; a short man with inquisitive eyes and a demeanor which gave him the appearance of always being deep in thought. He dropped me at a crossroad near the internet cafe, and I thanked and assured him I could walk the remaining distance.

"See you tomorrow," I told him.

So I began. First, I strolled into the mini mart on the corner, buying two ice cream cones, merely to satiate my craving, but also hoping to see a beautiful face; a beautiful Khmer girl behind the counter. Our relationship has been formed on lingering conversation that builds each time I push through the glass doors. Day one: I am a teacher at PVA and you are a cashier. Day two: my name is Seth and your name is Dalise; and so it continues. I stalled at the ice chest and looked down the aisles -- she was not to be seen. I closed the freezer door and walked to the counter with two cones; one chocolate, one vanilla. This would be a much shorter trip.

My heart beat faster. What was I about to see?

As I neared the internet shop, I noticed the light wasn't on. The street appeared even more dark now with this expected familiarity locked and quiet. Oh well, I thought or maybe mumbled. It wasn't urgent, and remember, I'm learning to roll with things. I returned pace to my stride and walked on, now to find a motorbike taxi to the pagoda. At the usual spot I saw several parked, across from the roundabout. So as not to play with a wad of cash in his eyes, I turned to a dark wall and presorted my fare for a now familiar route. Finished I faced the street again and while still halfway across, I made eye contact in the dim light, waved my hand once with palm to the ground, and continued across the road while my driver started his bike.

A grim sound registered in my ears.
*ticka-ticka-ticka*

He had a floppy hat with a camo print pulled down close to his ears, and the chinstrap fashioned against his jaw.

"Wat Nokorbachey," I told him. "Bei pawn."

He held up three fingers just to confirm the amount, 3,000 Riel, and I sat down while nodding in agreement.

I like this part of travel. I know where I to go; I don't need a map. I know what to say; I only know a little Khmer, but I know enough. I am a regular; sometimes I have the same motorbike who remembering me repeats my destination before it leaves my mouth. For the most part, I know these streets. I know where to eat, where to buy bread, where to buy newspaper, where to find cheap food and cheap beer, where to develop photos, and where to make local phone calls.

On the back of the bike, in comfortable familiarity, I opened one of my ice cream cones and took a bite of the chocolate flakes which had begun to melt on top. Though immediately I wondered if I should have opened it at all. Before we could really begin, we slow to a halt. There is a traffic jam. Again my eyes deceive me, but this one is different.

Motorbikes clotted the side of the road. People were stopped -- they were staring. My driver made an exclamation in Khmer. I didn't understand. On the left side, a few of the curious had moved, but they were stopped from pushing any further. Police had control of the scene. My heart beat faster. What was I about to see?

Focused on getting me to my destination, my driver began to creep through the gawking throngs. Over everyone's heads, I then looked, and a street scene began to move like a well-planned slide show; piece by engaging piece.

A large cargo truck was stopped; at a complete standstill.

Fragments and chips were scattered beneath its front.

A grim sound registered in my ears.

*pshh*
*pshhh*

Glass was everywhere.

Weaving about, I caught a view.

A man held a can of white spray paint and shook it, up and down.

*ticka-ticka-ticka*

He continues his task.

*pshh*
*pshhh*

He was outlining marks where a limp body had just laid on the pavement, most likely minutes before.

I wanted to look away, but I keep looking.

There were flashing lights, and whoever was laying on the asphalt moments ago had just been dragged away.

Glass was everywhere. Everyone was staring. It appeared a motorbike was involved, and with this thought, I doubted there were survivors.

I was glad we did not stall. My driver raced on up the road. I actually pushed the rest of my ice cream cone into my mouth. I surprised myself, though I know the world is becoming less shocking to me. But this moment of awareness, this slide show on the street, brought me face to face with my own mortality. I won't stop riding motorbikes, but I was reminded, life is fragile.

A tear welled on my lower eyelid. I smelled the night air around me. It was cool on my skin. I was alive, but someone was not.

Pagoda Boys.

From the beginning of May until the end of the June 2008, I lived in a pagoda in rural Cambodia. In the countryside of Kampong Cham, I was gracefully invited to make my home. I accepted.

The subjects of the photographs at the bottom of this entry, these boys and men, hold a special place in my heart. These are my roommates.

Pagoda boys make their living in the temple. They serve the needs of the monks through transportation, cooking, cleaning, and other duties; and in return, the monks give each of them a place to sleep and a passion to learn.

Looking at their faces, a casual visitor would almost never assume that some are destitute or that some face family issues completely out of their hands. But this is the case for several. In portraying this subject, my roommates at Nokorbachey Temple, above all I do not want to show anything that is wanting or devoid. Poverty certainly touches their lives, but the resilience of their hearts moves beyond material. I want the viewer to see the beauty of their hearts, the charm of their eyes, the sparkle of their smiles, and the nonsense of their humor. These are my friends. We speak in broken English and Khmer, and some of us rarely exchange words, but our smiles have broken the boundary lines between cultures.

These are my roommates.

Driving lessons.

Venerable Vandong now has a bobblehead in his car. It nods yes as he abruptly slams on the brakes, only to release and do it again. We are inching closer to the makeshift garage under the pagoda. Release, slam. Release slam. My head bobs too. This is a monk's driving lesson by night.

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Late last week we were slowly ambling in the direction of town. I didn't look over at him much then, but the robed driver seemed to be tense.

"How do you feel?" I ask.

"Uh... maybe not good sometimes," he says. He laughs and his entire body shakes, his enormous head waggles, and his eyes almost shut completely.

A slow SUV is in front of us, but at first Venerable Vandong does not pass. I don't say a word. He sits with his face leaning in and both hands gripping the wheel. He finally builds courage and we slide around the black Lexus. Cars like this are still a strange and sore sight for my eyes in developing Cambodia. I understand this Lexus just as much as I understand monks that own a car they cannot drive; a car in which they install a new stereo, plush seat covers, a bobblehead, a pine tree air freshener, and a second air freshener in an overly glamorous perfume bottle that sits glued to the dash.

"Maybe the driver the same me," he comments, looking back to his passing maneuver. Venerable Vandong continues his monologue.

"When you drive so slow, many people call you a 'tourist driver,' he says. He laughs jovially with most of his comments.

Now we are going faster. As we pull into town he slips the car in between two pedaling girls and I catch a glimpse of a petite figure on the bicycle nearest my window.

"Oh, very good," I tell him, commenting on the tight squeeze he just moved through, "but maybe better for me if you would have bumped the beautiful girl. Then I could have stepped out of the car to help her. 'Are you alright?'" From the passenger seat I mimicked lifting a fallen girl from the ground.

Venerable Vandong shakes with laughter and then runs with the joke. "Where is your house?" he says. "What is your phone number? Please give me." He shakes again, straight from the belly.

I had to laugh, not just at his joke, but the combination of all these vivid images of life in the past month: the bobblehead dog he most likely personally picked, monk's comments about the mysterious opposite sex, and now driving lessons in Kampong Cham.

Monks, me, and kung fu

Last night I tried to explain culture shock to Venerable Sokheun. It was difficult. He could not get past the idea that this shock is only relative to the cost of the country. For example, since Cambodia is inexpensive, it is therefore easy. I sighed in the midst of listening. I tried to explain what it would be like if he came to America on his own. Hopefully he understood a little by the end so that my next trip to Lazy Mekong Daze in town to play pool will be thoughtfully accepted.

Another visitor soon joined the conversation, but this time diverting the subject to vocabulary.

"Seth, I want to ask you a question," Venerable Koemva began.

"Sure," I told him.

We then launched into a discussion of the word operator described in terms of Cambodian farmers, and presenter in terms of group settings. As always, with mispronunciation and improper words, laughter follows in these lighthearted conversations. Soon the room was full of orange robed monks.

All of them can speak English at different levels, but by this time in our relationship everyone has input for the circus of English and Khmer. Whether in words or in laughter; at my expense or at the expense of the absent.

As the room filled with chatter the television was silently broadcasting across the room. We talked about Laura Boof, George Boof (this is the pronunciation of "Bush"), Hillary Clinton, English teaching methods, body hair, beautiful girls, monkeys, and farts. A typical night in the pagoda.

Suddenly, the volume escalated as a Chinese kung-fu movie hit the airwaves of CTN -- the Cambodian Television Network. Conversation was subdued by silence as the stares of what was now ten, or maybe eleven people fixated their eyes on a film genre that rarely disappoints in the pagoda: over the top, often bloody, slapstick, Chinese subtitled with Khmer dubs, kung fu movies.

I laid on the floor, shirtless, while a monk snuggled up beside me. The cooling night air brought some relief but a fan still stood on the floor turning back and forth. For a moment, I forgot my allergies, frequent stomach problems, and the problems with teaching.

It was kung fu night in the pagoda.

Education

Out here you roll with things.

On a Friday night, I was sitting on a mat outside the pagoda with two friends when Mr. Undia, a balding middle-aged Khmer man who frequently wandered into the pagoda, now wandered over to me in shorts and sandals, a cigarette dangling on his lips. He had tar plastered in between each front tooth and as he flashed a smile he invited himself onto our mat. Somehow, I paid for his beers. In a few past interactions, the only conversation piece he seemed to focus his energy on was self-assumed stereotypes of all foreigners based on his few interactions. He welcomed himself into the conversation with more of these ideas. As my disposition grew cloudy he then asked if I would accompany him to the university at which he taught. [Good follow up, I thought.] Wanting nothing more than to sip my beer on the lawn with friends, I was not in the mood to think about teaching.

"Do I need to teach?" I asked without looking at him.

"No, tomorrow students have a exam. You just come with me," he said.

"What time?" I asked.

"6:30 AM."

I pondered the possibility. I could easily see being manipulated into teaching something. Like when Venerable Sokhuen sends me alone into his class with the only instruction being, "its up to you." This isn't some malicious attitude, but when I am not prepared it is sometimes unsettling. On the night of this invitation, I was not prepared to be unsettled.

Even so, I told him, "Okay. But I will need you to make sure I am up in the morning."

"Alright," he said baring his teeth yet again in a smile.

The following morning, a grim sunrise was on my face as I sat with Mr. Undia for breakfast at a folding metal table just outside the school. Another man made his way over to us, with a confident but apathetic step. He was the director. After a few bites of his breakfast, a cup of coffee was brought, and he introduced himself.

"Where are you from?" he asked in an ascending tone. This was his introduction.

"America," I said.

"Ah," he hummed, "Ameri-shit."

"No, America," I slowly rebuttled in a low tone.

"What state?" he said.

"Illinois," I told him.

"North, south, east, west?" he asked.

"Northeast. About 60 kilometers south of Chicago," I said.

"Ah," he said again, "so Northeastern University."

"No, I went to school in Indiana; Indiana Wesleyan University."

"Is that a Catholic school?" he said.

"Its a Christian school," I told him, but I immediately regretted that response. Catholicism is part of Christianity after all. "Its a Wesleyan school to be specific," I added. "A private school."

He asked me more questions, about the pagoda, teaching English, writing the proposal -- the expected questions -- and then one not so expected question.

"What did you learn?" he said casually.

This caught me off guard. It was not that I hadn't thought of this before, just that I've never been asked before. I began to answer but was cut off; it was time to begin my morning at the university, but the question still stuck with me. One sentence shifted my attitude from apprehension to curiosity. Now I was beginning to see him as an educated man; disgruntled but detached from an ineffective system of education.

"What do you think of this curriculum?" he asked me in the office.

I stared at the whiteboard with class names sealed in peeling tape. Four years to a bachelor's degree in management, or four years to a degree in English.

"Its shit," he said before I could answer.

I only smiled.

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I never had to teach that day, but only sat at the front of the class in a blue plastic chair. At a desk, I thought more about the events of this morning. About my reluctance to help, about how tired I was in neverending cultural pressure, and about how bad the education system really is. As my mind fired faster than I could write, I sat in front at a desk no different than those at which students sat, but on mine sat a whiteboard eraser, a stack of tests, and plastic flowers, pink and yellow, fixed in a styrofoam block and placed in a tiny wicker basket. Mr Undia, slightly balding, and slightly bellied came to stand at my side and stared at me. As rising light brought with it heat that creept up to this second storey room, I could see the sweat on his neck as he looked down at me. This time though he smiled not only with his teeth, but with his eyes. I did not want to come this morning, but I'm glad I did. For him it appears that just my presence is a big deal.

Even so, something was missing. He asked me if I could commit to teaching literature. I told him no, but this time I returned his smile with one of my own.

Now, the morning was complete.