Two Way Freak Show

There's so much that we share
That it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all
- Disney ride lyrics

I'm feeling restless.  I love my afternoons at the orphanage, and I've made a handful of acquaintances with Khmer locals and western expats, but I've seen what there is to see in Siem Reap.  The river ride between Siem Reap and Battambang is reputed to be one of the most charming trips in Southeast Asia.  I have a weekend off from my volunteer responsibilities and I book a river boat ticket.

The trip is indeed beautiful.  Its also damn slow.  I made the mistake of staying out until 1am last night, knowing full well that I'd be picked up at 6am for a 7:00 departure.  I thought I'd sneak in a nap on the river.  The seats are short wooden benches with no cushions.  No zzz's will be had today.  How will I survive this 6 hour trip?  There is a hard cover roof that creates an upstairs deck.  Some looney European backpackers decked in dreadlocks and silk MC Hammer pants are laying out up top.  The sun is maddeningly hot.  Don't they know they are white?!  I smile, perhaps contemptuously, to see them fried red at the end of the ride.

The river ride serves two purposes.  For foreigners, its a long version of Disney's Its A Small World ride.  We board at the beginning and travel the entire route, eager to see local life and color along the water way.  It IS charming.  We pass villages with houses and shops on stilts in the water.  There are little wooden "islands" with cages that house chickens and pigs.  Everywhere the children come running out to wave at us.  They've been well trained by travelers before us; they know "Hello," "Bye-Bye," and how to blow kisses.  They are mostly naked.

No one in the villages seems to wear much.  I see women in bras chopping vegetables - really quite a shocker in this country of feminine modesty.  Many men are dressed in just underwear.  Their taught, slim, deep brown bodies help to keep me awake.  Gym queens take note!: throw out your protein shakes and creatine, coz there's nothing like physical labor and a diet of fish and rice to sculpt sexy male physiques.  I'm a little sad and a little glad that my friend and traveling companion Jose is not with me now.  His drop-jawed, wide-eyed drooling stares at the native male fauna were the source of much hilarity and embarrassment.  He's half German.  There is no word in their language for 'subtlety."

For the locals, the boat serves as a bus (see video here).  They paddle out to meet us and jump on or off the river boat.  We stop maybe thrice in each village.  This is what makes the trip so long.

This was a sweet moment on the trip, two brothers catching the boat home to their village were greeted by their joyous little brother and sister.

At one point we pass through a U.N. protected wildlife sanctuary, although I couldn't tell you when.  Jungled riverbank looks like jungled riverbank.  The birds don't know the U.N. boundaries.  There are some great birds though.  I wish I knew the species better.  I recognize brahminy kites, also common in the Philippines.  Such graceful and regal creatures, they look like small bald eagles cruising the river highway.  I see birds that look like cormorants, loons and vibrant green kingfishers.  My favorite bird, the swallow, is ever present.  Their ADD'ed flight patterns bring me a paradoxical peace and feeling of home.  At one point I see two boys dashing and zagging trying to catch a duck who is skillfully maneuvering through the legs of a perturbed cow.  The boys laugh and scream and a flurry of kissing sounds emanate from the cameras on board our boat.

As we pass the millionth village and the bazillionth naked kid runs out to scream, "bye-bye!" I realize that I'm a participant in a two way freak show.  We're here for a long, thin slice of local color.  We see naked brown kids and women in bras.  We use words like,

-idyllic
-peaceful
-the Real Cambodia

They seem so happy and content along the river even though we know that they work their asses off for a handful of rice and damn well wish they owned fridges and motorbikes.

And we seem otherworldly to them - camera toting tourists with full sets of teeth, but without the common sense to get our pink asses under the cover of shade.

In Battambang there is an "internationally acclaimed" circus of former street kids that are brought in for formal education and training in circus arts.  It sounds really cool, but the metaphor hits me like an electronic fly-swatter.  I skip it, opting instead for an evening of noodles and beer at the night market.

Toilet at a rest stop on the boat ride. 

Playing in the Rubble of Dead Gods

I scream at orphans.

The sun is merciless on this dusty field.  My face is dripping, my t-shirt is drenched through.  There are 20 girls with me wearing hand-me-down uniforms.  About half of them have shoes on.  They seem much less impacted by the heat than I am.   They all live in the orphanage and comprise the girls' soccer team.  I'm trying to teach them to execute a basic flank run and cross to an attacking teammate.  It's not going well.  They dribble down the line tentatively, almost lackadaisical.  Why is it so hard to get recreational girls to play with OOMPH!?  The crosses are limp travesties wandering toward their targets.  "You must look UP!" I say, pointing to my eyes and demonstrating.  I figure they understand about a third of what I say.  "Eyes up.  See friend.  Give ball in front of her.  Not in back, not to side - in front.  Strong pass.  Yes?"

They nod.  They're thinking that for someone from America, he sure speaks English like an idiot.  Finally a girl streaks past me down the line, sneaks a peek to the middle, then launches a perfect barefoot cross to her teammate who in turn slots the ball past the keeper into the side netting.  Perfection.

"Yes!" I scream.  "That's the one."  I clap my hands together a single time and point at the passer.  "That's the one!"

She looks at me in horror.  She's frozen in fear.  I realize that my excitement looks like anger.  My teeth are clenched and my eyes are wide.  If you don't know the term, "that's the one," it sounds like I'm upset and yelling at you.  I smile broadly, nod vigorously and put two thumbs up.  "Very nice," I try to convey calm enthusiasm.  "Very nice."  Within a week all the kids mock my passionate positivity.  They'll score a goal in a scrimmage then pump their firsts and yell, "nice!" and make an angry face.

Little punks.
I love them so much.

Siem Reap is tucked into the northwest corner of Cambodia.  People from all over the world come here to visit Angkor Wat temple and the many magical ruins around.  These incredible structures were built in the prime of the Khmer Empire between the 9th and 13th centuries to honor their kings and gods.  That empire has crumbled, the kings and gods are long dead, having abandoned the Cambodians to centuries of poverty and victimization at the hands of invaders, colonizers and themselves.   You walk toward the temples mesmerized by their grandeur and detail, awestruck at the ability of an ancient people to conceive and execute ambition at this scope.  As you walk, a dirt-smeared six year old boy escorts you.  He has only tattered shorts and a large fan which he waves in your direction, begging for half a dollar for the service of cooling you down on your temple climb. 

 I climbed the temples three years ago, and now I've returned to volunteer for a few weeks at an orphanage.  Everyday at three I take a tuktuk to work, where I work with a football coach to go over drills and tactics and then coach the teams together - boys on Mondays and Wednesdays, girls on Tuesdays and Thursdays, combined chaos on Fridays.  Of course I have favorites.  There's one boy who is 14 although he looks 11.  He's the gayest athlete I've ever seen.  I watch him and see myself although he skips and flutters with a confidence I never had at his age.  When I first met him I didn't like him.  I thought he was mocking my high voice and mannerisms.  After an hour I realized, oh my, that's really his personality!  He's always talking and screaming and everyone around him buckles over with laughter.  They're not laughing at him.  He's actually telling jokes while he's playing the ball.  He's magic on the pitch.  He plays center back - I love him even more - and he floats along, his feet seem to barely touch the grass and dirt.  He'll dribble up to an opponent, taunt them with the ball, then maneuver past as they crack up laughing because he's of some joke he's told (see video here).  I have no idea what he's saying, but I'm laughing as well.

Yelling is not my only faux-pas.  On my first day, I was teaching the boys a basic double chop dribbling move, cut backward with the left foot and then forward with the right foot.  "Dribble and CUT back, then CUT forward.  Good.  Dribble and BOOM - go left. BOOM - go right.  Good.  Dribble and BOOM BOOM.  Nice.  Again, BOOM BOOM!  Great. "  The children are very well disciplined, but I see smiles and snickering sneaking from their usually perfectly attentive faces.  One boy finally cracks and others follow in an eruption of laughter.  Later I learn that, of course, "boom boom" is Cambodian slang for sex.

Play Heals.
It's an idea that has become an obsession for me of late.  As I was struggling with my own minor hardships in the last year, my laughter was the first thing to go.  I wasn't playing.  When people, especially kids, go through trauma, they lose their ability to play and laugh.   For children this is especially troublesome.  Playing is learning.  When kids stop playing, their growth is arrested.  The kids at this orphanage are full of play and laughter.  When I arrive each day, the kids are scattered in pockets playing games with their slippers, tag games, games with rocks and jacks and hopscotch.  I come early so I can play their games and teach them new ones; look-up/look down, sharks and minnows (which I rename crocodile and river fish for cultural relevance), the slapping game (not as violent as it sounds).

The kids who live here needed healing.  They needed help learning to play.  They needed to learn security and safety again.  I'm surprised to learn that many of the kids at the orphanage are not true orphans.  This is actually a street kids rescue and prevention program.  The Center identifies youth in dire poverty.  It takes in youth who are heading to the streets for begging, peddling goods or far, far worse.  About half of them have no parents.  The other half come from poor families whose parents couldn't feed or clothe them.  By coming to the Center, they are guaranteed food, clean water and clothing.  Khmer staff and long-term western volunteers provide a top-notch bilingual education.  The Center pays for the youth to visit their families twice a year.  The families can visit anytime, though they rarely do as they can't afford the travel expense.  Most importantly, the kids are loved here.  Love is palpable the minute you enter the gates.  There is smiling, nurturing and affection.  I saw a staff person administer an injection to a crying toddler.  Six older youth hovered around soothing the scared child.  When the shot was done, a boy scooped up the brave patient, congratulated her with an infectious smile and then pulled her into a distracting game involving rocks.  I come from a loving family, but when my brother cried, I laughed at him.  They live in single gender 'families' of six to eight kids who live in a small house with a house mom.  The mom is a staff person who lives with the kids full time.  At night, they pull out a mat and all sleep on the floor together.

I informally interview many of the kids.  One of the boys tells me that his mom lives in a village about 50 km away with this three older siblings.  He has a little sister who lives in the center as well.  He doesn't go home for the breaks.  He hasn't been home in three years.
- Don't you miss them?
- No.
- Why not?
- We adapt.

I'm confused and a little judgmental.  How can he not miss his mom and siblings?  Later it hits me.  Something very bad was going on at home.  Many of the kids were rescued from abuse or neglect.

Here he laughs, he plays, he learns, he cares and is cared for.  And he plays football with abandon.

Clearing the water buffalo from the field. 

Maneuvering through Phnom Penh

Navigating the streets of Phnom Penh is both amusing and thrilling if you have time, patience and no attachment to your desired destination.  Visitors avail themselves to three modes of transportation - walking, motorbike taxi, and tuktuk.  This city is blessedly walkable, especially compared to the tangled Manila maze that I just came from.  Maybe its the French influence (the coffee rocks as well) as the streets are wide and inviting, often with fully completed sidewalks.  The major arteries through town such as Sihanouk and Monivang are huge boulevards with park-like walkways dividing left and right traffic.  Most shockingly for a Southeast Asian city, the streets have sequentially numbered names and are laid out in a grid.  Even numbers run north - south, odd numbers east - west.  Even though I have the navigational intelligence of a radish, I can't get lost for long since I can path by numbers toward my destination.  Its a gorgeous city for a stroll, particularly in the mornings and evenings when the heat has released it's choke hold.  Beautiful temples sprout with skyward reaching spires.  Flowers bloom.  Children play.

Two rivers - the Mekong and Tonle Sap - hold the city in their palms affording views of boats and fishing boys.  Colonial homes adorn the city streets like vintage jewels.  And although they are ubiquitous here, I always enjoy watching the monks go about their daily business.  Saffron, orange, red and copper robed men and boys tote umbrellas and books along the parks and promenades.

Phnom Pehn is easy to navigate unless, apparently, its your job to navigate it.  The moto and tuk tuk drivers are brilliantly inept at getting from A to B.  My guidebook says that moto trips in town should cost about 50 cents, but I can't seem to get them below a dollar (the national currency is the Riel, but U.S. dollars are accepted everywhere).  I announce my desired destination.  If the driver nods and says Yes, it means he has no idea where it is.  In this frequent case, I will get out my map and show him.  He will then stare at the map and repeat the name of a major street between 5 and a dozen times.

- Mao tse-toung boulevard?
- Yes, Mao tse-tuong.
- Ahhh.  Mao tse-toung!
- Yes.
- Mao tse-toung. Two Fifty.
- Yes 250th street.  Near Mao tse-tuong.
- Mao tse-TUONG!
- [blink.  blink.]
- Mao tse- tuong.
- Um, shall we go, then?

We'll set off in the general direction dodging traffic in a wonderfully fearful manner.  Traffic laws are implied suggestions here.  Motos will frequently drive on the wrong side of the road, barreling into oncoming traffic.  A red light means look before you go.  Right of way is accorded by the law of "size matters"  Buses and four wheel drives are the top predators of the Phnom Penh food chain.  They do what they want.  Cars come next, scissoring like sharks into schools of motos.  Motos and bicycles are the krill of the city streets with only the pathetic pedestrian to lord over.

My moto driver will inevitably become lost or stop to talk to a group of other drivers for directions.  Remember, the streets are NUMBERED; what could they possibly discuss?

- We are going to 250 street.  Where is that?
- Well, this is 240 - so maybe it's that way in the increasing street direction.
- Ah yes - increasing that way?  Like it does everywhere else in the city?
- Maybe.  At least it was that direction this morning.
- Mao tse-tuong?
- Yes, Mao tse-toung.
- Mao tse-TUONG?
- Yes, Mao TSE-tuong.
- Ah MAO tse-toung.

This will take five minutes.  We will attract four other moto drivers, two begging urchins and a woman selling chicken livers, "You know you'll be hours.  You should buy from me so you don't starve on the way."  When the conversation ends, we'll all have a good laugh and point and pat each other on the back before hightailing it in the wrong direction.

A week later, after stops in Bangkok, Battambang and Lansing, Michigan, we'll arrive at 250 and Mao tse-tuong, discovering to our delight that the intersection is still where the map says it is.  The driver will then try to renegotiate the price to compensate for the greater time and distance it took.

MAO TSE-TUONG!

Some photographs of the rivers and promenades in Phnom Penh.

Six Perspectives on Phnom Penh

1.  Three years ago I visited Cambodia for a couple of days just to check Angkor Wat off my bucket list.  More inspiring than the otherworldly magnitude of the temples was the earthly vibrancy of the people.  These folks have been through hell and yet they smile, laugh loudly and connect.  I suppose when a whole culture has walked through death, it gains an immediacy for life.  I promised myself I would return to learn more.

In Phnom Penh, I'm sitting at the Foreign Correspondents Club enjoying the first well-crafted cocktail I've had since Cebu.  The sun has just slipped behind the buildings erasing the glare from the Tonle Sap river below me and casting well-earned shade across the city.  An elephant walks down the street.  Captive elephants depress me.  These huge, intelligent creatures are broken down to serve as slaves of burden and tourist amusement.

On my walk here, I chanced across a strange and scary occurrence.  A local woman suddenly ran down the steep concrete bank into the river [see video here].  I thought she was cooling off, but she flopped in the water, unable to swim, slowly slipping under.  A policeman ran after her and jumped in and pulled her out.  There was a man with her.  Was he breaking her heart?  Telling her of the other woman?

I'm alone for the first time in weeks.  I feel alone - my extrovert natures stirs and shifts, unsettled.  I don't want to make a friend just yet.  I want to sit.

And write.
And think.
I want to experience my own unadulterated company for a bit.  With a cold and dirty martini, of course. 

2.  I do the obligatory death tour.  I'm not going to write a whole lot about this because I'm here to delve into Cambodia's present.  But one can't understand the intensity, intricacy and layers of Cambodian life without understanding the Khmer Rouge legacy. Here's the uber-abridged version.  In 1975 - in my lifetime - Pol Pot came to power and led a sadistic version of agrarian communism.  In the process, he attempted to kill anyone who was or seemed urban or intellectual.  This included city dwellers, teachers, artists, monks and people with glasses.  One fifth of the population of Cambodia was murdered.  The west and the United Nations were so humiliated and wounded from the Vietnam War that they refused to cast a glance at the atrocities in the region.  Fortunately, Pol Pot and his cronies were tactical morons.  A culture of paranoia infected the leadership and naming members of their own movement as subversives was commonplace.  They also kept pissing off their natural communist allies, the Vietnamese, with frequent border raids.  The Vietnamese finally had enough and invaded Cambodia, putting an end to four years of insanity, but not before an entire generation of educated people had been exterminated like termites.

I visit the Tuol Sleng killing center where people were detained, tortured and executed.  Like the Nazis, the Khmer Rouge carefully documented every victim with photos and fingerprints.  The photographs line the walls of Tuol Sleng.  I walk through the stifling halls and my mind starts playing games and I notice strange things.  Like how many of the photos are outstanding portraits.  Or the expressions.  Shockingly, very few faces radiate overt fear.  Most are stoic.  But there are stark gender differences.  Many of the men and boys are smiling a slight, twisted smile as if to say, things come full circle.  The women look pissed off.

A group of young monks walks the corridors alongside me and I am glad of them.  I am glad that there is a younger generation that is dedicated to learning, to intellectual and spiritual pursuit, to learning it's own gruesome history.

[missed photo here]

3. This is the shot or video that I didn't capture; one of my favorite images from Phnom Penh.  I'm in a shopping center escaping from the  monsoon rain.  A group of barefooted novice monks, probably from the countryside, has the same idea.  They are pathetically attempting to navigate an upward escalator for the first time.  They cluster at the bottom, stepping forward and stepping back in fear.  A crowd backs up behind them, entertained and cheering them on.  A security guard steps forward and one by one, nudges them onto the moving stairs in a frenzy of squealing and saffron fabric flapping.

4. I've become somewhat of a connoisseur of drag.  Cambodian drag performers are the worst I've ever seen.  They don't have the creative bravura of Americans and Mexicans.  They lack the fragile feminine faces of the Thais, or the performance talent of the Filipinos.  They generally lack beauty, talent or grace; I see absolutely no relationship between the movement of their lips and the song they are trying to emulate.  The shows are horrid, even terrifying.  I go every chance I can.  I'm drawn in the way one rubber necks a traffic accident or watches 70s porn.  There is a perverse delight in the absence of aesthetic. At the Blue Chilli bar, I befriend all the not-so-lovely ladies (see video here).  They pull me regularly up on stage, which is really just the bar.  They coax me to dance and sing, but I won't sing since I actually know some of the words to the songs and that seems a violation of Cambodian drag policy.  But I bump and grind and spin and take shots - all with one hand over my wallet.

Da













5.  There are two types of westerners that settle in Cambodia; those that open bars, and those that open NGOs.  Cambodia's brutal history of colonialism, war, genocide and poverty make it ripe for non-governmental organizations (in the U.S. we call them non-profits) to jump into the fray and attempt to impact positive change.  Many of these organizations are doing tremendous good; schools for the poor, agrarian development, providing capital for poor women, rescuing people from the sex trade.  NGOs are not without criticism.  Some describe western NGO workers as nouveau-colonialists who set up pockets of positivity like pepper plantations, impacting single lives while making the locals dependent and without creating systemic change.  Afterall, where is the pressure on the government to cut through rampant graft and corruption if NGOs are doing the work that should be provided by the government?  With any colonialism, there are those who figure out how to hustle the system.  I met a guy named Da who went to high school at an excellent NGO school with western educators.  The school was set up to help street children.  Da comes from a middle class family.

 "Cambodian government schools not so good," he tells me. "Also expensive for uniform and books.  So we tell them I have no family.  After two years they know, but already they like me so I can stay."

6.  Occasionally, I have a drink without alcohol, but never after 11am.  I sit at a restaurant literally on the water of Boeung Kak lake enjoying a mango lassi.  Its still and peaceful.  I'm the only customer and the watier is keeping a blessed distance as he tends to me - giving me the gift of quiet time, thinking time.  I watch a young boy slowly paddle past the dock.

I write.
I sip.
I watch.
I breathe.

My precious moment is rent apart as a gaggle of young local men come barging onto my barge in a whirl of slipper clacking, nasal laughter and puffs of cheap cigarette.  They have a throw net.  One of them climbs onto the roof of the floating dock and prepares to cast.  He tosses but it catches on a pole and falls impotently to the side.  Hoots of laughter and jesting erupt and I find myself cracking up along with them. Someone has a guitar and starts playing.  Another offers me a smoke.  The net is thrown successfully and as it is pulled up, everyone begins oohing in anticipation (see video here).  I finish my lassi.

I've traveled extensively in Southeast Asia.  But for the first time, a thought creeps into my head.

Phnom Pehn.  I could live here.

Baguio and Vigan

Since I'm grounded in the Philippines for awhile waiting for my lost cards to get sent here, Jose and I take a sort trip north to the cities of Baguio and Vigan.

In Baguio, we visit our friend Edlibert's mother.  She's a treasure of a woman.   A small treasure, standing at about 3 foot 7.  She's a wonderful hostess and conversationalist, telling us anecdotes frequently peppered with her favorite phrase "Echetterra, echetterra, echetterra."

After a brief time in Baguio, we bus to to Vigan, in Ilocos Sur.  The rocketed along turning a two hour trip into six hours.  Seriously?!!!  It stopped every damn few feet to pick people up or drop them off.  Can't they do one stop per town?  At one point, we stopped to pick someone up and there was another woman literally 10 meters ahead with her hand out for the bus.  You couldn't have walked your fat arse a bit forward to make it one stop?  After a week, or so it seemed, we arrived in Vigan which is the birthplace of Jose's father.  Vigan is the most enchanting city in the Philippines.  It's preserved it's gorgeous Spanish colonial look and has been named a UNESCO world heritage site.  I think a cool bucket list would be to do every world heritage site in Asia.  We meet up with some of Jose's relatives and hang out with them.  Navigating cobblestone streets is quite taxing on a wheelchair, although maybe Jose enjoyed some of the vibrational effect, so we opted to transport ourselves via calesa - a horse and buggy (see video here).

My cousins are half Ilocano with the last name Collado.  Hmmm...

My favorite filipino dish is pinakbet - a vegetable stew that includes bitter melon, eggplant and is flavored with bagoong (fermented shrimp paste).  The Ilocanos are known to make the best pinakbet.  Here we ordered pinakbet pizza.  I can't wait to recreate this at home. 

The Ilocanos are also known for their longanisa.  In this video, Jose tries and fails to show us how to eat it Pinoy-style.  It's a sausage that they make terrifically well.  It tastes a little like Portuguese linguisa, but drier, smokier and less spicy. 

We stay in a gorgeous old colonial town, formerly the residence of the Gobernorcillo (mayor under Spanish rule).  Our room has a big four poster bed, mosquito netting, and capiz shell windows.  Tom Cruise stayed here for a month when he was filming some scenes for "Born on the Fourth of July". Right outside our room is a huge formal dining room where we are served breakfast.  It's one of the most enchanting places I've ever stayed. 

We find a disco one night - pretty sad, really - that has "perfect Manhattans"on the menu.  Apparently a perfect Manhattan in Vigan is green, sweet and comes with an olive.