Living and Loving Life: January 2008

GREAT NEWS!!!!
As of February 2nd, 2008, I just got news that Sage Cambodia has just started to bore holes in Prey Chouk's (where the school is located) ground to begin the process of getting the first water well in that area! WAY TO GO EVERYONE! You all helped to make it become a reality! Thanks to all our friends and family who have supported us along the way to help this school! This is what the new water pump will look like!!

When we first began our trip to Cambodia, my roommate, Heather, wrote an email to Suzanne, my second roommate. She said, “Take care of the little one. However, I don’t think she needs much help, seeing as she is ‘Amy of a Thousand Countries’.” In my travels throughout Southeast Asia, I have been Laotian (from Laos), Khmer (from Cambodia), Chinese, Vietnamese, Japanese, and of course, the ubiquitous “you are Thai people!” Each time, I am left to my own devices to try to explain myself. I often go with the standby version of the stereotypical, movie Indian complete with a warrior cry. Most times, however, my attempts fail because the people cannot even begin to fathom that an Asian-American/American Indian-looking person could even be from America! On the other hand, there have been a few success stories ending in a happy, grinning Thai person (usually a taxi driver) who is enthusiastically making the signature “wooo wooo!” Indian call because he’s probably seen at least one old Western movie during his lifetime. In any case, the encounters are many, and I am beginning to realize just how much “Amy of a Thousand Countries” is enjoying her time here in Southeast Asia.

Over the two-week break in December, two of my American teacher friends (Alisha and Suzanne) and my best friend from home, Bryan, took the opportunity to volunteer and travel throughout Cambodia. There are many pictures that help to illustrate what we did and where we were, but there are never enough pictures to explain what we felt while being in a country so recently torn apart by civil war and genocide. People talk about poverty like it’s something they understand and that it’s something they know so much about. But, the truth is that unless you’ve been an 8 year-old child begging for formula to feed his baby brother, you don’t know what it’s like to be poor. I can’t say that I’m an expert on this subject, and I can’t say that I know what it’s like to be this way. All I can say is this. Most of us spend so much of our lives with many blessings that include food, shelter, clothing, safety, and people that love us. We come from a world of privilege, and yet we find ways to complain about materialistic goods and always, “things that aren’t fair.” I realize that I can’t save the world, although I want to on a daily basis. ☺ And, I definitely realize that I’m not perfect in any way. If anything, I would want most in this world, it would be this: for every person in the world to have hope in something and/or somebody in this world. With hope, comes the desire to want to help, to want to make change in the world. I want to say Thank You to all the amazing people in this world who have given us hope that we can help make a change in the world, even if it is something as small as painting a classroom, teaching a child to speak English, and/or educating awareness of good dental health. To all the people who so generously believed in us, I want to say “Ow Kohn!” (Thank You in Khmer) for all of your help. The people of Cambodia thank you too.

SAGE CAMBODIA (the NGO that we worked for during the week)
This is Sage Cambodia's first school

One of the many bikes that the kiddos take to school...often with a little brother or sister riding on the back

Our curious admirers

This is what it looked like BEFORE we painted

Gotta get the corners!

After all the painting...Ta...Da!! The kiddos in their new classroom.

Bryan teaching a little math in his spare time

Doin some math

Us and the Kiddos

Teaching English

Me reading to the kiddos...a little Eric Carle if you will. :)

GREEN GECKO
These are pics of the dentist skit we did for the kiddos at Green Gecko

Ewwwwww!!! My teeth are all black from eating oreos for breakfast! The sugar bugs love me!

Bryan teaching the kiddos how to "brush, brush, brush your teeth!"

Just a little squeeze

Brushin the teeth...gotta get rid of the sugar bugs!

Yeah for clean teeth!

SOME PICS FROM OUR TRAVELS
And the Journey begins....at the airport...

After arriving in Penom Phen, we took a 6 hour car ride to Siem Reap, where we volunteered for 1 week at a school an hour outside Siem Reap, along a long dirt road full of potholes and livestock! Here are some pics we took along the way.

1000 year old bridge. Be careful Bryan! Don't break it!

This is where the Buddha carvings start

Once we reached Penom Phen, we decided to take advantage of our extra day before our volunteerism started and booked a tour with the same company that gave a percentage of the profits to Sage Cambodia (the NGO we were working with) as well as hired only local guides and businesses. We started out in a cool little boat that floated along Tonle Sap Lake and meandered its way through some Floating Villages and dumped us on to land where 5 motorcycles were waiting to pick us up and take a long, bumpy dirt road through the countryside before arriving back to our minibus and on to our last destination, a wat near Siem Reap. It was a busy day!

Some cool boats near the Floating Villages

Cows chillin in the road

Just before beginning the boat tour

Here's da catfish for da crocodile!

Our view from the boat heading through the trees in the river on our way to the Floating Villages

Bryan caught this pic of me at the Floating Villages

And this is where dried shrimp comes from

ANGKOR WAT

Almost got it....

Got it!

Look! I'm driving a motorized bicycle! Watch out!

Statue of Buddha

In front of Angkor Wat near sunset

Bryan got this cool pic of me on top of one of the temples just as the sun caught my reflection. Yeah, see what 2 years of High School photography can do baby!

A Beautiful sunset at Angkor Wat

Us on the "set" of the Angkor Wat Show

ANGKOR THOM
Wow! We look sooooo smallllll...

Before Bryan left Phenom Penh, we decided to take it upon ourselves to get ourselves into trouble and rented a motorbike in town. Needless to say, it was the highlight of our time together in Cambodia. If you could have seen us,loaded down with luggage and dodging crazy Cambodian traffic with motos, tuk-tuks, cars, bikes,and other such various forms of transportation! It was a sight! In addition, after our somber trip to the Killing Fields, the gear shifter (I think...I dunno? I'm a girl!) broke on our motorcycle, forcing Bryan to run and start the bike, while I waited at the end of the road to "hop on" to the moving motorcycle. It was great! A bit of "Little Miss Sunshine" style with us pushing and running! We also took some videos of us driving out towards the rice fields and the Mekong River. Enjoy!

Backpackin on a bike in Cambodia!

Bry and My's last night in Cambodia...note, Bryan's eyes are incredibly red in the center where the dust (from driving the bike all day) did not catch onto his eyeball because he was wearing glasses!

Suz, Me, and the Kiddos at the beach in Sihanoukville

See Saw Rock...Trekking near Sihanoukville

Where Suzanne might have gone

Okay, here's the REAL bathroom....not much better...but it will definitely do!

A New Friend in Cambodia

Ummmm...so, this is the bus that Suzanne and I almost took to Kratie before I finally crawled out the window at the last minute because we were thinking that A) we actually overpaid for our ticket to Kratie whereby we were sitting amongst 20 other Cambodian people in a bus made for 12 B) our luggage wasn't actually tied to the top of the bus and most importantly C) We continued to ask 4 or so Cambodian people if "is this the bus to Kratie?" and pointing to a Cambodian map and people laughing at us like we were a bunch of idiots. Needless to say, after Suz and I hopped out the window, we grabbed our backpacks from the top of the bus (obviously they weren't tied down because there were 5 or so people who were going to be riding on top of the bus anyways) and jetted on out of there...willing to catch the next "official bus" the next morning for half of what that crazy bus made us pay! In any case, if you squint hard enough, you can see my pack on the top left but you can't see Suz and I laughing at what may have been one of our greatest Cambodian adventures in "not knowing where we're going in Cambodia"

Tarantulas, anyone? They're yummy!

Suz and Tell on the moto

A beautiful sunset from our hostel along the Mekong River in Kratie, Cambodia.

Getting ready to board the dolphin boat

Some cute kiddos near the dolphin boats

Our boat in the Mekong River

I'm on the hunt for the rare, Irawaddy Dolphin! (picture me saying that in a famous Australian accent like the late Steve Irwin)

Supposedly this is the largest Wat in Cambodia. Tell told us a really cool story about how there was a Cambodian princess who was eaten by a crocodile. This temple and smaller lotus temple to the left are tributes to the princess. Inside this temple (wat) are huge, beautiful drawings of the life of Buddha and how he came to be Buddha. We were lucky to have Tell there to tell us stories in English!

So, Tell and his friend told us that they'd take us a little tour the day after they had met us. They had mentioned something about a mountain, and I was all excited to go someplace high and full of trees. Well, our first stop was this gorgeous temple, where could hear the monks chanting as we twisted and turned up the stairs to the top of the wat (temple). So, we get to the top, and I'm like, "okay, I"m ready to go see the mountain now." You know, thinking we were about to do the next thing on our sightseeing list and Tell and Suzanne say at the same time, "Amy, this IS the mountain!" What a dork! Anyways, here's me on top of the mountain!