Another Rainy Hour in Cambodia

I'm again (once again) escaping to an internet cafe during a dounpour after a meeting I had near the Russian Market (Psaar Toul Tom Poung- for those of you who know Phnom Penh).

I can't believe that I've now just reached the mid point of my time here, it seems to be flying by far too quickly. I've been really encouraged though over the last week with some really useful meetings for my project and already talking to people here who can see the value of the work I'm doing so that really helps to keep me motivated.

I've been struck more this time about the larger picture issues facing Cambodia. Injustice is a massive problem. Many of the prisons are full of those who are inocent, but too poor to buy themselves out. When they are inside, if their families can't provide for them, they face terrible cramped conditions and malnutrition. Another issue is that so many are facing evictions in the countryside where their land is being sold from underneath them with little if any compensation. The land is mainly going to many foreign companies and individuals who are playing the speculation game. You hear from some of these farmers that they would rather die now than lose their land, because by taking their land you kill them slowly. Many totalitarian ways remain outside the city of Phnom Penh, and in many places you need to receive the permission of your village chief to have any sort of gathering, or if you wish to leave the area for any reason you also require permission from the authorities. I can't imagine living like that.

I was trying to imagine what it would be like as a struggling rural farmer to lose your land. As a suburban guy for my whole life, that sort of life-style is so removed from me, but I wonder if it wouldn't be akin to something like this, let me know what you think:

For a poor farmer, all he has ever done is farm the land. They know land and they know their crops. They know especially the land and crops that grow in their area. They might not be able to read, or might not have any other 'marketable skills,' but the land has sustained them. I think of me, I've never owned any land, and I think helping my mother when I was forced to in the back garden doesn't really count as farming. But what economically sustains or will sustain me are my education and my experiences. The fact that I've been to university, already ups the possible pay that I might get, further training as a doctor will undoubtedly provide financially for a time for me and my family in the future. So perhaps evicting a farmer from his land might be a little bit like someone wiping my mind of my education.

Perhaps, if you feel in a similar boat as me, think of what it would be like to wake up tomorrow morning and not be able to read, or not remember how to work a computer, speak technical words in your language, write a report. What would it be like to not know how to put together your thoughts in a logical order on a piece of paper in a way that other people can understand? Of course I don't know, but I imagine if it might be a little bit like that- taking away the capital that a farmer has (his land) and the capital that you have (your education). How scary would it be to live in constant fear that all you know about life and how to provide for your loved ones could be ripped away from you at a moments notice.
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We are confronted by massive issues here and as I got around and meet many different organisations working here in Phnom Penh, I see even larger parts of the jigsaw that all fit together. We had a meeting for the Servants workers today, and a friend shared a passage that she has been dwelling on recently. It's in Luke and it's the story of the goats and the lambs. There's a whole lot of stories that Jesus tells leading up to this one that helps shed even more light on this, but to keep it brief I'll just focus on this part. What are the reasons why God seperates the goats from the lambs? Was it that their churches were too small, was it that their worship music wasn't moving enough, was it that their youth programmes weren't big enough and didn't run smoothly enough (not saying that all these things aren't worthwhile perhaps) but those aren't the reasons god separates these two groups. In the story, the goats are separated because they didn't invite the stranger into their home (I probably have never really done this), they didn't clothe the naked (I have never done this), they didn't visit or take care of the prisoner (I have only very rarely done this), and they didn't feed the hungry. Okay so it's not about these exact activities per se but we get the picture.

This story is immediately preceeded by the story of the Talents. I know a lot of us feel like, 'what on earth can I do?'I was struck today, that perhaps the one in the story who was given just one talent may have felt that same way, and so he was afraid to even use that one talent. I so often feel COMPLETELY INEPT, especially when I come across people with stories and situations that are so foreign to me. I feel completely unable to do anything.

But why is it..... that when I truly believe that the way God works is to use the weakest things in the world, the things and people that the world believes are useless and inept, I don't apply that to myself? Perhaps God wants to use me in my UNBELIEVABLE ineptness; this lazy, overweight, uncoordinated, not very street-smart, suburban man to make a difference. I just need to be open to it, give up the fear- and let him.

1 Week Left!

Ahem....alright, the picture above is a piece of work that I thought somewhat accurately symbolizes my current inner feelings (I guess it could also be interpreted as me about to eat a giant invisible sandwich but I'll let the viewer decide). 1 week from today I will be on a plane heading towards Phnom Penh! Thank you so much to everyone who has contributed money to help me to go and to support the work of the Cambodian community health organisation TASK that I am going to be working with. So far we've received enough support so that we can give a donation of over 600 US dollars to their work! Depending on where you're coming from that may either sound like a lot or a little but at the moment with the global economic crisis, and the skyrocekting food prices in Cambodia, it will help a lot. The average monthly salary of a full-time TASK employee is in the range of about 120-140 dollars a month so this obviously will mean a lot to their work and hopefully will help them be able to spend money to provide the most basic of needs (food, shelter, medication) for some of the most vulnerable in Phnom Penh.

Although I'm really excited about going back to Phnom Penh, there's a whole lot to do before I go. I've got a final exam on Thursday (it's an OSCE - Objective Structured Clinical Exam) where they set up patients in several different rooms and stations, and you have about an hour and a half to rotate through and spend about 8 minutes with each patient and perform an assigned examination, take a history, or interpret some results of tests. In a way, it's actually kinda fun, but also can be pretty scary (for both student and patient I imagine!). Anyway, that's on thursday so I'm spending the next couple of days preparing for that. Then, as soon as that's over, I'm moving all my stuff from my current house into a new one, and then wrapping up everything I need to do here before I leave on Tuesday! One final thing that I'm trying to organise at the moment is a job for when I get back from Cambodia. I've planned on only going to Cambodia for 5 weeks this summer as I really need to spend some time earning money to try and subsidize all the expenses that come up during the year. I'll probably end up trying to do some temp work, but it would be really nice if something became confirmed before I leave, cause it would take that concern off my mind. So if you're thinking of ways to pray for me at the moment, that would be a good one.

Alright, well I guess that's it for now, I'll try and post once again before I leave. Thanks again for your continued prayers, emails and support.

It always hits the poor the hardest....

So I've been thinking over the past few months as we hear constant consumer news reports show that the price of basic food is gradually going up all over the place. More recently we've been seeing reports of the price of rice skyrocketing across the world. All this comes at a bad time economically when many western countries are looking at the prospect of recession and the value of global reserves (mainly held in USD) is rapidly declining. Whenever these types of situations occur it always hits the poor the hardest.

I just got this report in the most recent Servants Newsletter:

Cambodia: The inflation of rice prices (up to a $1 a kilo) has caused great suffering for the poor leading to chronic hunger and illness. The TASK AIDS homecare project has been forced to stop providing rice to patients and their families because the budget has run out. At the very time that those who are most vulnerable and least able to earn money are suffering servants is unable to help. Please pray urgently for this situation or contact one of the servants offices if you feel you can help in any other way.

Rice is a basic necessity of life in Cambodia. If people have no rice, they have nothing else to eat. This is an extremely difficult problem and those who are poor, displaced, and ill often have no social support in place to get them through it. It's even sadder to hear the double burden that now the agencies who had been providing food support (such as TASK's AIDS home care programme) have been forced to stop providing it because of lack of resources.

Resurrected Blog...Cambodia bound...

Well, I decided many months ago now for several reasons to give Blogging a break. But I've decided, in the spirit of the recently passed Easter, to bring it back to life, if just for a little while. The main reason is that this summer, at the end of June, I will be heading back to Cambodia to work with Servants for 5 weeks (God willing), and I thought I'd bring back the blog so that people can hear about the trip and can pray for me if they desire to do so.

I've got just over 2 months of holiday this summer, and it is really the last time I'll have to be able to travel to Cambodia before my training eats up my holidays in constant rotations. I'm excited about the trip, and will be working again with the Teen Drug Users project (TDU) set up by TASK the local Cambodian NGO that Servants began over a decade ago. Addictive drug use has exploded in Cambodia over the past 5-10 years. Reports say that 50% of Cambodian urban youth are regular users of the destructive class of drugs Methamphetamines, locally known as Yama. Many children who live in the slum communities and on the streets of Phnom Penh, get through the day through sniffing glue. There are suprisingly few Charities or NGO's working with these kids and teens to help the find a better, healthier and more hopeful path in life. The government does not have any true drug rehabilitation programme, but rather a single reserved room in its youth prison as its main response to this overwhelming issue.

When I was in Cambodia before, I worked with TASK's TDU project in its begining stages. I did research into the beliefs and behaviours of these youth to see why and how they used these substances. Now I've got an opportunity to go back and help see how the programme is doing and how it can be improved. It can seem like such an overwhelming problem, especially as it's all intertwined with other huge problems such as the breakdown of social support, lack of opportunity, and great poverty. Please pray for wisdom at how to proceed with the TDU project, and how to best reach and help these kids.




One of the communities where the TDU works

Well, this is going to be my last post from Cambodia. I leave the day after tomorrow to go back to Dublin till I return in January to Wheaton. Last night some people had a small good bye party for me, it was such a perfect night. We went to the top of the "training centre" where I've taught english so many times, and put out mats and ate cocunut (all different type of cocunut). The sunset was so beautiful (not captured well in this picture) and Sopee set up some music which was this really classy piano instrumental music, to be going in the background. It was one of those perfect moments. We sat around and laughed most of the night and then when it got dark and the food was gone, we changed the music to some good old traditional cambodian and did a bit of dancing. That's a great way to end my time in Cambodia.

Thank you to all of you who have been keeping up with me as I've been here, emailing me, praying for me. Please keep praying for me as I leave and re-enter life in the west. It's going to be difficult. I was realizing last night just how difficult it's going to be to readjust as I was taking my nightly shower. It dawned on me that now it's become perfectly normal for me to put a krama (cambodian trad scarf) around my waste, go down stairs, take river water from a giant pot in the middle of the room and fill an old dirty paint bucket with water in order to take my shower in the corner of the room. That's completely second nature now and something I don't think alot about, little things like that tell me it's going to be a huge shock returning home. Please also continue to pray for those in my community that I'm leaving behind, this life is not a life that they can leave, it is the supreme expression of my wealth as a westerner that I can freely (not in the financial sense) come and go. Please pray that God will continue to bless them and the new long-distance demention of our relationships.

Good Bye Party from Younglife

This is a picture of a group of my ex-students and some co-workers who organized a small goodbye party for me. It was a really fun time, and sad as well, but I'm so thankfull for these people and the memories they've given me.

Here's another one, Can you spot me? (yet another chance to strain your eyes)...

So this is us at the beach, I love this shot, it really gets the kids excitment at the opportunity to swim in the ocean. The big guy in the front is a friend of mine named Sopee, he works with younglife and is amazing with the kids and teens.

Weekend at the BEACH!!

So I just got back from a weekend at the beach with over 200 AIDS orphans at a camp put on by our organization called Project HALO. It was an unbelievable time of games, singing, crazy dancing (Cambodian style) and of course swimming in the ocean. The water was so warm! It was great. For most of these kids this was their first time seeing the ocean, and so is especially a good treat. I had to keep reminding myself that these kids were all orphans, because they were just like any other great group of kids aged between 7-15 having fun together. Some of my friends also went along as volunteers and helpers so it was also a fun time of hanging out and working with them. They even judged my Cambodian good enough to where I could lead one of the games (they had about 13 games set up that the kids would give you tickets to play at). I think the best thing about the weekend was the dancing. Khmer dancing tends to be pretty slow and reserved, but this stuff was more like the crazy stuff you find in Hindi Films.

Two of my host siblings were able to go too. When we got back, one of them, Terum, shared some questions he had with me. He asked, “What do you have to do to accept Jesus?” He also asked “What happens if you used to believe in Jesus and then stopped?” I shot up a prayer for wisdom in what to say to him, and then tried to formulate some answers in Khmer (especially hard because there’s a different vocabulary involved when talking about God). I hope that some of what I said was helpful to him, but I’d really appreciate your prayers for him as he’s obviously wrestling with some serious spiritual questions, and there’s no one really that he’d feel comfortable asking these things to. I’m sure it’s one of those times where you really miss having a father and mother.

Thanks for all your prayers for me. I’ll be seeing some of you in about 2 weeks time (believe it or not).I’ll be arriving home in Dublin on Friday the 18th of November, but leaving here on Thursday morning. (And, if you’d like to come to the airport to collect me, my host mother has gone and bought me a traditional Khmer suit for me to wear on my journey home, so you’ll get to see me in that). That’s most of the news for now, I’ll probably post at least one more time before I leave, and I’m sure I’ll be posting more as I go through reverse culture shock when I get back to the western world.

So as I was buying a pack of shampoo from my host aunt who runs a small shop from our house, I was surprised to see a very familiar logo. So if anyone in Ireland figured we weren't a part of globalism, think again. Look up towards the right hand corner and see what's on sale in the middle of a slum outside of Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Here's a closer look.

Siem Reap Story

So the day has finally come and gone of bringing these guys to Siem Reap. It was really fun to see this dream coming true. I'm sure I'll never understand just how much a trip like that means to Cambodians, let alone poor Cambodians who'd never dream of this becoming a reality. But now it's come and gone.

I wish you all could have been with me on the trip and known everything that went on, but it was so busy that it would take many lines to write out everything that we did, and I'm sure I'd forget a lot of it too. But here's some "highlights".

Sunti- the 19 year old girld- insisted on making us lunch for the bus ride there. She insisted and so I at least convinced her to use some of the money I had been given for the trip, I gave her 5 dollars for making meals for the 5 of us, that was more than plenty, but I don't think Sunti was quite experienced at making packed lunches. We each ended up with like a half pound of dry rice, and a few pieces of meat, and cold fried egg (which my host brothers didn't even end up eating). The packages that you could buy from the side of the road, suddenly seemed like a much better option, but experience is the best teacher. We all thought it was pretty funny.

We went with a group of 13 other people, my co-worker Nay was taking a group of girls she mentors and works with in an income generation project (all orphans aswell). After the 6-7 hour bus ride, we arrived in Siem Reap, and checked into our basic, but comfortable hotel then hit the Cambodian Cultural Village, which is sort of a disneyland of Cambodian culture (excpet no rides). There's a bunch of shows going on like a millionaire's wedding, or a harvest festival dance, then there's the ethinc group shows, like the chinese dancing, or the tribal ceremony to pick a husband, all of these shows have audience participation as well, so it's usually a good laugh.

First night restaurant we took them to a $3 all you can eat Thai BBQ restaurant, where you choose the meat and cook it yourself at the table. They all had tons of fun and was an experience I'm sure they'll never forget, everyone was overly full by the end of it. This was as nice a restaurant as most of them had ever been too.

The next day was at the temples, We spent about 2 hours in the first temple and got progressively quicker through the 5 other temples we visited throughout the day as temple fatigue hit in. We had some good down times as well, just to look at the view.

That night we took them to this great themed restaurant on the main street in town that was about 2-4 dollars a plate. The restaurant was like you were eating in one of the temple ruins, had great lighting and a really fun atmosphere. It was a thai restaurant again (which seemed adventurous to most of the Cambodians with us-cambodians aren't known for liking a wide range of foods-), but some of the really adventurous even tried western dishes (most not finding them too satisfying though). They had a good time though, and we went downstairs and found a snooker table and a disco ball set up with a small dance floor so we danced and played the night away. It was really fun to see these girls and my boys all acting just like normal aukward teenagers. They had a good time though, and we finished the night off with their choice of ice cream and soft drink. (yeah, okay so we spoiled these kids, but if any kids deserved to be spoiled it's these ones).

The next morning was spent relaxing and at the local market buying gifts for friends and family at home, then made the long treck home.

All in all it was a great trip, and my family were all pretty happy (but admittedly worn out) when getting home. I'll try and post some more photos soon.

Well we had a great time in Siem Reap! I don't have time to tell you all about it right now but here's a few pictures of our time there. This one is of us crouching infront of a miniture version of the royal palace at "The Cambodian Cultural Village".

Leaving for a few days...

Thank God for the past few days. It's been the festival of Pjoom Bun here and I've had a great time. Sunday night I went out around town with a friend of mine named Phanna, he's just two years older than me, and has really been great to me since I've been here. He's also an AIDS orphan and used to live in one of the areas where I teach, he also used to be part of a gang, so he's really good and giving me insight to some of the things I'm coming across.

Monday afternoon I spent with Teara, Tearum and Sunti and we went to visit their grandfather and grandmother as this is a family holiday. Their grandad is an Ajaa which is sort of the buddhist equivalent of a priest or pastor, unlike the normal monks he's the one who organizes everything, givers "sermons" (I'm not sure of the buddhist word for this) and arranges funerals and weddings. Currently they live in the temple because their current house is almost underwater. We spent a bit of time with them (I had never met them before) and then took a boat and hung out at their one room house. It was fun just spending the afternoon on the boat, and then also on a one man innertube with plank on it. Teara's best friend Boyaa came with us and ended up falling in to the pretty scummy water.

Yesterday I spent mainly at home with the family and then today we had a Servants retreat where we discussed a lot of team issues and had an afternoon of swimming, so that was relaxing.

The last fewdays I've been eating non-stop. All neighbours and relatives come by and give food so we've been eating pretty well, and if I ever had any doubts about Cambodian cuisine, not anymore, I've never had such delicious food. When Cambodians spend money making their food, it's unbelievable. One of my favourites (which I know doesn't sound very appetizing) is this food which is like a brick of semi-cooked sticky rice with spices surrounding various things (either banana, beans, or -my favourite- pig fat...yes I knowI'm disgusting). It's then wrapped and kept in banana leaves. You can eat it straight from the banana leaf or sometimes they cut it up into slices and fry it, making it really, really delicious and pretty greasy. Praise God though that if there was any day I should have had food poisoning it should have been over the past few days, but as of right now I'm still doing pretty good, I had a bit of an upset tummy this afternoon, but I think it's passed now.

Tomorrow I'm finally off on the trip bringing my host siblings to Siem Reap. Thank you those of you who have contributed greatly to this trip, I'll definitely let you know how it turned out when we get back. If you get a chance pray for us. The weather's been pretty bad lately (last night we had a crazy strong storm that pretty much flooded our room) and so I'm sure the roads are pretty bad too.

All the best for now,

Michael

These two pictures are of the 3 days I spent in a really poor province of Cambodia, which is normally a desert. They had a little rain for the past two weeks so everything looks amazingly green and healthy, but this is a really poor area and the families here are depending on this rain for their lives.

I've got to say that scenes like this, after you've spent the previous 4 months living in a tight-packed, smog filled, urban slum, become sort of magical

Sorry it's been a while...

Well I wish I had a really good excuse for not keeping you all up to date recently, but I don't. I was going to try and say that since we were out of internet for a few days at the office and had to use internet cafes for email that it would have been too difficult to blog, but I really could have if I had made the time. The truth is that I've just been busy. I have a long day. I leave the house each morning just before half 7 and then get back home at night at about 7:00 at night. 3 days a week I get to eat lunch at home but other than that I'm running. I love it though generally.

I'm really getting into this drug research, finding out all sorts of things, and also about health conceptions. It's really interesting. The fact that I taught all my interviewees English for 3 months before I started interviewing means that the majority of them are really comfortable with me and willing to open up to me. I didn't plan on that so that's definitely great how it turned out.

Since I've last written, I've spent a few days in the country side. It was amazing, I was there to accompany one of our organizations doctors who goes down to work with patients at a small health center there once a month. Just being out of the city was amazing, and this province was unbelievably beautiful. The country life is such a contrast to my slum life. Amazing, and a real retreat. I also spent two days at a conference on contemplative prayer and spiritual formation, I know that probably sounds weird to most of us, cause it is a bit out of our usual vocab. But it was good a restarting my times of prayer as meaningful times and remembering that it's not just about me speaking but me listening aswell.

What else?... I've been able to get to know a few of our youth group members a little bit more, which has been good and met some other youth in the community. It's good to get to meet more of the non-Christian young people in my community because I haven't had many chances to interact with them. Cause I work at the day and there usually not around much at night.

Well, It's currently the Cambodian version of Halloween, called "the festival of meeting". Here though the festival goes for about 15 days. It's the time when all the spirits are let out of the afterlife and come back, so everyone is extra specially giving offerings to their ancestors and even to ancestors of people who don't have any living relatives. I guess that's very charitable. But, It's a big family time here (and also a time when everyone has the creeps). From October 1st -5th everything will shut down, so servants is having a one day retreat to use the time wisely. I'm hoping to get some rest too.

Well, I've got to run off and teach my evening class. I'll try and post some pictures soon.

Keep the emails coming! I love hearing from you all.