Wednesday, May 21, 2008

I am everyone.

In cities like Phnom Penh, there is an ugliness.

Black smoke lines stream from tailpipes long past due, sticky plastic trash collects in sidewalk piles, rotten fruit and dead fish slop on seller's tables, and wild dogs of incestuous breed prowl the gutters.

But there is beauty in its rhythms.

Here you can walk to the beat of traffic light ticks and hike over broken tiles scattered by tree life beneath. You can move to the neon glow of restaurant lights that snap down the street into domino life, or pick a straight line across motorbike traffic and with unfounded faith know that they will stop.

In the city sprawl of Phnom Penh, I know no one and no one knows me. Today I am a virgin and the city is a whore. I feel every sensation of its filth and beauty, in scent, sight, sound, and touch.

Today I can be anyone I want to be, and if I choose, no one will ever know.

Here in the midst of millions I realize that I am everyone.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Pictures.

This is going to be a short post.

First, I want to apologize for the lack of photographs on this blog. Most of you know that I have been taking thousands of pictures, but I have neglected to put them online. Because of viruses that can, and have, infected an SD card of mine, I have avoided connecting to any machine that has the slightest potential of risk. Unfortunately, this means waiting until I reach a safe computer before posting pictures, (very rare).

Second, I want to inform everyone that I have found a safe computer, and a better method of uploading. I now have several pictures posted on my Flickr site...

(http://flickr.com/photos/86005420@N00/),

...and will be posting more in the future. On this site you can view a larger image and comment if you click on the image. Hopefully soon I will have some comments of my own that will give you a little background on each photograph I've taken.

Third, I'm still in Cambodia.

Love,
Seth

Thursday, May 8, 2008

"Maximum."

On the first day I considered content to be most important and I took his word. But on the second day, my patience was wearing and I had to look. Moving to the top of the essay portion of Venerable Vandong's proposal, I read the instructions just to be sure that he was correct in a "ten page" length for this attached portion.

"It says 10 page maximum!" I exclaim to him. "That means it does not have to be ten pages!"

For the past day, he has pushed me into believing that we needed to reach 10 pages in his very first essay. Yes that's right; this is his very first essay and I am teaching him to write it.

I continue, desperately trying to get him to understand my example. "This means that it can have five, or six, or seven."

"Or eight," he adds in a serious manner.

For a moment I stare blankly. Whether at him or at the air I do not remember. For a moment I want to pull my hair out, but somehow I resist and start laughing. This is the laughter of insanity, misunderstanding, frustration, innocence, humor, and spending more time explaining than writing.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Sick in the pagoda.

I live in a pagoda now with a host of Buddhist monks.

Visiting the small city of Kompong Cham, I came across a volunteering opportunity and committed two weeks of my time; ten days left at this point. Based on the discovery of my university degree, a monk named Ven. Vandong ("Ven" meaning "Venerable," a title bestowed upon monks), asked me to help him write a project proposal for the organization he has founded, BSDA (Buddhism and Social Development Association). BSDA has provided free education and cultural development for over 1,000 children in Cambodia. Most of them are extremely poor, while there are many who have no parents, or have been pulled off the streets of Kompong Cham, from begging, child slavery, or maybe worse. With over half the population of Cambodia under the age of 18, this organization is truly fighting for life, just as much as it is fighting for change.

The particular proposal I will be working on, concerns improving the lives of the impoverished and underprivileged communities in Cambodia by raising awareness of social accountability in local government. Hopefully, the people of Cambodia can establish for themselves a more active role in governmental policy.

For the length of my volunteering, I will live with the monks.

I sleep on a wooden bed, I eat after they do, I study English with them, I sit with them in my room, and I watch an 80's, Chinese language, over-the-top, Kung-fu movie with them. Many of the monks are in their mid-twenties.

Their kindness is overwhelming. It has proved itself from the beginning, but recently, when I was sick.

...............................................................................................

My stomach was bloated -- swollen past normality. Three times I threw up, but it remained the same with nausea rolling in my belly. Muscle twitches and tiny cramps strained random tendons. In this weakness, my body's state seems to be the only concern in this world; I think of little other than its improvement.

This is reprove for the frailty of man; the selfishness that binds me, and how sickness rules the human state.

In this time, I missed my family immensely. My mother's care is like none other. My father's willingness to tuck me in a blanket or make tea to soothe my throat and stomach-- never ending. Knowing that I am missed in my half-a-world-a-way absence increases my longing.

In this sickness, its as if all my doubts and misunderstandings of a culture not my own, all my personal insecurity, fell into a single moment. They fell into a single pile. I wanted the familiarity of a worn, plaid blanket of navy blue and crimson, and a pair of brown pillows my father stitched -- made for comfort, not for style. I wanted to nibble saltine crackers and to sip 7-Up; not be offered rice porridge and hard-boiled eggs. I wanted a bathroom with a toilet to sit on and paper to use; not a squatter with a dipper and water at my side. I wanted familiarity. I did not want to give a spoonful of food resistant contemplation. I only wanted second nature. But necessity always leads to action.

My sickness surged on.

In the morning I made a third trip to expel contents of my stomach. I rushed to the bathroom, thinking of the toilet near the floor, but finding it in use, I darted out a side door and convulsed in yellow.

A monk came by and said to me, "Are you alright my friend? Do you need my help?"

"I think I'm alright," I replied, my nose dripping.

My body shook again. In a arched crunch my back and abs tensed. I stopped for a breath.

"Here, do you need me to do this?" He began to rub my back and massage it in gentle taps.

"Thank you," I said while in a squat, hunched over a ledge, at the top of a cement flight of stairs. "Thank you so much."

"There," he told me with a smile, finishing his act of care.

I rinsed my face in the bathroom and walked back to my room, trying to contemplate what I had just felt. I was stopped multiple times along the way, with smiles.

"Did you eat yet?"
"What is wrong"
"Do you want to take a bath?"
"If you need it, the bathroom is just around the corner."

...............................................................................................

My sickness lasted for three days and two nights.

In this time, visits from monks never stopped. They never stopped inquiring on how I was, nor asking me if I had eaten yet. I went to a doctor, was given pills. I had a traditional Khmer treatment applied to my stomach -- crushed herbal leaves with oil. I can now eat again, and even though the day after left me in slight fear, the taste of Cambodian food will draw me back in. It already has; out of necessity and desire.

This was not quite home, but looking back, a lesson in kindness and a bed that Someone great prepared for me.