3 God mothers, an auntie and a niece

Good catch by my dad!

Back home

So its been a GOOD 6 months since i last blogged.... what to say - robberies that cost me more than $5000 then general problems - and my beautiful orphans plus the children i teach as well as a selfishness or an unselfishness to not want to share me bitterness with the rest of the world when i am surrounded every day by those 100000 X worse off than me....

But after 4 months of health problems and being diagnosed and treated with everything from gout to DVT to parasites and dengi fever i decided after i could not get out of bed for a week it was time to go home - the tests they wanted to do could not be done in Phnom Penh and in Bangkok or Saigon they would cost over $800 so it was worth it to buy the plane ticket back here to "paradise". The people here are the same and have no idea what poverty is.... some in the nicest way saying that the $20 they give to my organization per month is nothing - not knowing just how much we NEED that $20 and that the $20 feeds 8 children for 1 week.... then there are those that cannot give cause you know - the stock market is not doing so well!!!??? yet they still afford all of life's extras... how to explain that we are not after big money

good news is there is hope and i hope to have more news regarding fundraising for our now 15 orphans as well as my health!!! will update soon!

Parachutes

I have recently developed an irrational fear of two things - hotels and long plane flights. Irrational fear is nothing new to me but these two things were once my passion, my indulgence, my escape. I have in the past been lucky enough to experience staying in the Park Hyatt in Tokyo, the Ritz Carlton and some of the cheapest dive hotels in Hollywood and Asia. I was once so proud of the ability to travel through time zones and climate changes with absolutely no effect.

Now the thought of an airplane flight is tedious - no matter how short and hotels make me shiver with the cold heartlessness within them, the feeling "i am alone" is echoed in the sanitized rooms and their streamlined brand styles.

Because of these feelings i chose to travel to Bangkok by land and was lucky enough to have a friends apartment to stay in, this is not just a beautiful friend but an artist. To be surrounded by her work and inspirations is a dream come true and though there are lovely boutique hotels i think nothing compares to a home and style built personally, not designed for the comfort of others but out of love. I am happy to have this time-out here to gather my thoughts and read, write, watch DVD's, listen to music and think. I am lucky to have such inspirational friends.

         

          

This morning I went to school to find all of my students wearing plain clothes and ordering take away pizza, ok it is Khmer New Year but was this allowed? I went to the school office and no-one was there, I assumed it must be Khmer New Year for them as well and went back to class. I thought it was odd that Sibbon did not arrive though and also wondered why they didn't just make it a holiday.

About an hour later Sibbon showed up, there had been a fire.

The Khmer wages at the school are low so many of the staff live together in wood houses near Boeung Kamphloak Lake. Sibbon told me that this morning there had been a fight at the brothel near their home and a girl started a fire. The fire department was called and a fireman came but a gun was pointed at his head so he quickly left the area and the other people (including my friends) were too scared to do anything.

This was at 5am this morning, now 7 hours later more than 60 homes have been destroyed and the fire continues to burn.

Sadly it won't be such a great New Year for everyone.

Home Sweet Home...

London visit / Into The Wild

was on a plane to London and thinking of how much seething I may feel in my visit. I knew this must be over come lightly but I find it so hard to "pupallapup" or "bullshit" with western society. It usually makes me sick, more so than the dark side of Cambodia, more than having a gun pointed at me as a joke by an uneducated poorly paid policeman who has no idea why he is closing the streets surrounding Toel Sleng Museum. I could not cope with the thought of the frivolous conversations I would overhear and participate in, in the west. I was on the verge of a panic attack.By chance on the plane I saw the film playing on the main screen, "Into The Wild", I had no intention of watching anything and I was sad that I was recently robbed for the 2nd or 3rd time in Cambodia, this time drugged, my personal belongings searched and my irreplaceable I pod was stolen. Music means a lot to me and I had none for the 12-hour flight. I saw as I glanced to the main screen that all songs from "Into The Wild" were written by Eddie Vedder, a teenage favorite of mine and I thought to put down my book "Cambodia, year Zero" (I have read and watched everything about Cambodia but still "everything" is a literal word so I was reading this book to make sure I could honestly say "everything"). Putting the book down helped me prepare for my return to the west and my beloved and hated London. In the film the main character, Alex, is using the hate he feels inside and transferring it to give love and hope to others. That's something that's fine and easy to do in Cambodia but in the UK? Then I thought this film is set in the U.S.A. a place I have found more self-centered and shallow than any other country I have lived. There must be those like Alex in London, they may have taken a different route but their heart is the same. I need to view all people as him and find those few that give a shit about life outside their own morals, value's and cultural ideas on polite and acceptable behavior, those that are willing and wanting to help others with out any need for praise, thank you's or formal credit.My return from London was surreal, I loved and hated my visit as I had already predicted but I was shocked by the result of my expectations, which were not that great, and not as I had predicted. Those I thought would come through did so more out of obligation than anything else and those I thought would be full of "pupallapup" had more energy and acceptance than I could believe was true, but it was! I was also amazed by my own emotional reaction to the ability people to completely remove themselves from their immediate environment. This is something that I have tried but never succeeded in doing, and also something I have seen many times in many countries so why was I so taken back and affected? This I do not know but will be sure to write again if I ever see reason.Future visits to London seem to be on the cards again from an unexpected source that shares my dream of connecting the UK and Cambodia. This I am already preparing for, my dreams of walking London streets again are paralleled with the harshness and expectations of English society and the indifference of the people in it. To quote Eddie Vedder "How much difference does it make?" If it makes any, then it is something I am willing to work for.In conclusion, the film "Into The Wild" I will watch again and recommend it to others as a beautiful journey of a young man in search of humanity in such a false country. He takes a brave and honest search amongst his own people to find trust and love without needing to leave or let go of western values. Simply put "he rocks".