Disconnect

I just spent the entire evening speaking only in French with three girls from Japan, Romania, and Germany in an Indian restaurant in Cambodia.

The Cambodian Countryside

Scene from the drive between Siem Reap and Phnom Penh.

Integration?

I wonder a lot about the degree to which I'm immersing myself in Cambodia. I am living with expats, working with expats, and I find myself comparing my Cambodian experiences to theirs. Am I more authentic or less? Am I doing enough?

Is it wrong for me to choose a chicken and guacamole panini at the French-style cafe for lunch, when only yesterday I had fried noodles with seafood (in this case, "seafood" meant squid). Do I offset my cereal purchases from the expat supermarket with the dragon fruit I bought from a vendor on the side of the road? Have I learned enough Khmer to justify a three or four-month stay, or should I be more aggressive about language acquisition?

I ride in a tuk-tuk, but then I wonder if that is because I hail from the West. I don't trust the unhelmeted motorcycle drivers, but is this wrong? Do I cling to my American habits because I am afraid or because they are habits?

I wonder about things like "social responsibility" and "acceptable immersion", yet I don't think I can quantify my experience here. What is the real Cambodia anyway?

And yet, I AM an expat living here. I cannot escape the fact that I am American; I am a foreigner living here for just a semester's time. I can never integrate fully, especially not in such a short period of time. I can only do my part to experience and celebrate this country for what it is.

The Market

Today, I went to the market. I’m not talking about Lucky Supermarket which caters to the expat community here. No, I was the only Western face wandering through the dank corridor of vegetable stands, passing giggling Khmer venders and shoppers. Less than two blocks from my apartment, this massive labyrinth of produce appears unexpectedly. From the street, I only notice one or two vendors selling apples imported from New Zealand, tangerines, dragon fruits, and litchis. I wonder how they came across the apples in the first place.

As I purchase a few fruits, I realize these vendors are merely the gateway to an extensive network of produce sellers and fishmongers and vendors of eighteen different kinds of cooking oils and single-use packets of shampoo. The deeper into the market I wander, the darker it becomes, sunlight blocked by the crowded stalls covered with low-hanging burlap tarps. I am overwhelmed by the smell of dried fish and roasting garlic. A vegetable vendor grins at me, thrusting forth knobby green bitter melons with her gnarled fingers and soliciting my business in Khmer. Peanuts and cashews in tiny plastic bags hang like Christmas tree ornaments, swaying as a motorcycle bumps into the stand in his irrational attempt to drive through the narrow space.

One stall over, an entire family lounges on a raised platform wearing pajama suits and playing cards.

I look to my right just as a woman dumps a bucket full of live fish, splashing relentlessly as they beg to be returned to the river. Her sister removes the scales from this morning’s catch.

A little further, the squawk of an angry chicken announces my entrance to the meat section of the market. Shoppers can choose between the plucked, naked chickens swaying like broken wind chimes and the stack of freshly killed birds that resemble a pile of feather dusters. Just beside their dead cousins, a crate is packed with a dozen clamoring chickens who seem aware of their fate. Across the narrow path, a series of pig organs hang from the stall. Pig feet are lined in a neat row along the table.

I reach the end of the market and turn around to head home. A Khmer woman turns to her friends and says something loudly. I pick out the word ‘foreigner’ and glance sharply to my right. She shrieks with laughter and directs her Khmer chatter at me. I pretend to understand and laugh, which is apparently the correct response.

I return home with my little bag of fruits and vegetables, and I feel strangely accomplished. I have succeeded! I have purchased three apples at the Khmer price! I bought an onion! I am amused at my own pride.

Phnom Penh

Every morning, my friend the tuk-tuk driver arrives at my doorstep at 7:45 am, eager and ready to take me to work. I sit on the plush beige seat of this Cambodian rickshaw while he adjusts his helmet and climbs onto the attached motorcycle. The rusted red rim separating us is adorned with faded photographs of Phnom Penh's most famous destinations - the Royal Palace, the Silver Pagoda, the rifle range.

The next thing I know, I'm bouncing over potholes as we fly down the street at nearly 20 miles per hour. In moments, we leave my residential enclave of housewives and gated homes and meet the hustle of city center. Hundreds of gallons of exhaust pumped into the city each day by unregulated vehicles have dulled the streets, giving it the illusion of a 1950s discolored photograph. Dozens of tuk-tuks and motorcycles and Lexus SUVs challenge each other for space on the aged road, making tight turns to any space that may open. There are no lanes; it is a dance of worker bees returning from an expedition to the fields. Droves of motorcycles lead the pack since they have the clear advantage. In addition to their space saving capacity and ability to squirm through the smallest of openings, the patrolling policeman turns a blind eye as they shift onto the wrong side of the street. (It's more efficient, after all.) The rare pedestrian must summon a blind faith in God to cross the street unharmed.

On either side of me, Phnom Penh awakes as children walk to school in their immaculate plaid uniforms an shop owners reset their window displays. Each store is specialized and random - wooden doors, hubcaps, and silverware. "Lucky" seems to be the most popular descriptor here. I pass Lucky Supermarket, Lucky Burger, and Lucky Dental Clinic, to name a few. I see a family selling clams by the bushel beside a fruit vendor marking the ripest of spiky jackfruits with a spray painted red X.

Beside me, a family of four atop a motorcycle pulls up and peers in. "Hello!" the young daughter shrieks, eager to practice the English she learns all day in school. Though she can't be older than seven, she sits in front with her hands calmly gripping the steering wheel. Her father sits behind her, his hands flanking hers as he controls the bike. He wears the sole helmet and a nonchalant expression. His son, a few years older than his sister, simply stares at me, gaping, as if he must absorb every intricate feature in the twelve seconds we are stopped by traffic. His back leans into his mother who wears a full set of brightly colored pajama pants that look like a Lucky Charms advertisement or the scrubs you would find in the waiting room of a vet clinic. Next they zoom off to gather with the other motorcycles ahead. I notice older man on a pink and silver scooter with a fifteen pound bag of rice between his knees. Beside him, three college age boys are so desperate to be cool in their Genuwyne Ralph Lauren polo shirts. Impatient, they drive onto the sidewalk approximation to circumvent the out-of-place Range Rover.

To reach the office, we must drive to the "suburbs" of Phnom Penh, where suddenly the air becomes clean and the streets become colorful. As we cross the abandoned railroad tracks, I notice a young mother washing her son in a bucket of water and soap while her laundry drips in the breeze. Another five minutes down the dusty dirt road, over the creek, and around the puddles from yesterday's rain, and we reach the office. May another day begin.

107F and Sunny

It's so hot that my metal bicycle kickstand melts into the blistering, black asphalt driveway every day, leaving it pockmarked with nickel-sized holes. My cycle's black seat also suffers under the sun, forcing me to bear the two mile trek to class alternating between standing and burning, unable to decide which is better: to speed through campus and fly over unnaturally tall speed breakers in hopes of catching a breeze or to slowly pedal over, conserving my energy and maximizing time in the occasional shady stretch of road.

It's so hot that I've more than doubled my daily water intake and drink at least one rehydration packet per week. And still, I'm continually thirsty and dry-skinned and chap-lipped. It's a never ending race between dehydration and water consumption, and water seems to escape from me through direct evaporation rather than sweat.

It's so hot that I've altered my daily schedule to include an early afternoon nap that celebrates the air conditioning units of Tagore House, while leaving me awake and functional later at night when it's cool enough to breathe and enjoy stargazing from the rooftop.

It's so hot that students laugh when you mention tea time, professors postpone class to avoid daytime power outages, and the campus dogs have become nocturnal, burying themselves beneath boulders during the heat of the day. American's have begun using Celsius so as to measure temperature in smaller numbers, Indians all wear headscarves or caps as a protective barrier against the heat, and ice cream is impossible.

107 Monday, 107 Tuesday, 103 Wednesday, 105 Tomorrow

Chavadi Welfare Society

Every Tuesday, I spend a couple of hours at an ashram for boys between the ages of 8 and 15, playing Uno and telling stories. The Chavadi Welfare Society was founded about a decade ago to provide boys of orphaned or single-parent families with a quality, private education. Much of the funding comes from individuals who sponsor specific children by equipping them with school fees, materials, and uniforms. The 35 students live at this ashram and visit their hometowns around the state of Andhra Pradesh on holidays, partaking in a very modest lifestyle.

On our first Tuesday, I brought a deck of Barbie Uno cards that I had found in the dorm lounge to help break the ice. Soon, an amoebic circle of a dozen or so boys had formed around me, sitting cross-legged on the outdoor concrete ashram entrance beneath a weathered sapling. As I explained the rules in English, several boys teamed together to translate them into Hindi and Telugu. As the game began and the sun set, I oversaw confused and beautiful Uno game. Whenever one boy was lacking a card of the right color or number, his neighbor would shiftily pass one to him. And likewise, with cards to dictate a new color, each boy would ask the others what they would prefer, even if it was a color he himself did not possess. Rather than the cutthroat American must-win approach, these boys celebrated each others' wins and shared each others' losses. It was easily the most endearing, polite, and friendly Uno game I've ever witnessed.

In a later visit, I was asked of my "future ambition". I managed to turn the question back to them. Of the six nine to eleven-year-old boys present, four replied engineer (software, chemical, and two generic engineers), one police, and one Chief Minister of India. No astronauts, firemen, or doctors. But, for children of such underpriviledged backgrounds, such ambitions should be commended and supported. And I also wonder about the promotion of engineering as a career in the Indian school system.