Coconuts and centipedes

I had my first episode of serious adrenaline pumping this morning.
I was sitting on my bed, reading and journaling and thinking about peaceful and encouraging things. My reverie was rudely interrupted by a shiny, slithery, sneaky centipede wiggling across the floor - running under my suitcase! I tensed myself up and leapt across the room to grab one of my Chacos, then leapt back onto the safety of my bed. As I was leaping back to my bed, the centipede rushed out from under my suitcase only to run under my bed and backpack. By this time I was shaking - all phobias are irrational, right? So I know it is silly to be this scared of such a small creature, which may or may not even bite, but I couldn't help it. Give me a snake or a mouse or a lizard or a spider any day over a centipede. (Picture me gasping each time I see it come out.) I sat there, arm raised, waiting for the centipede to come back out so I could smash it, but it did not come... so I pulled my backpack out from under the bed, and as I did so I saw the centipede's antennaed head waving around before it crawled inside my backpack! I shook it violently a few times, stopping each time to pull my hands away in case it came out close to them, to no avail. So I just sat on my bed, shaking, keeping my eyes fixed on the backpack so I could see it as soon as it came out. What if it came out when I wasn't looking, crawled up my bedpost and onto my bed?! Finally, it wriggled out of my backpack and headed for the wall. I jumped at the chance to kill it before it got away. If I didn't kill it, how would I sleep at night? (Bianca, I thought of your Burkina snake stories in this moment.) I smashed it with my Chaco, but not well enough - it curled its body around my sandal and almost touched my hand. I dropped the sandal and jumped back, but determined not to lose this fight, grabbed my sandal again and this time bore down hard and ground the monster into the tile. I twisted the Chaco around an extra ten seconds for good measure. I scanned the room to make sure it had no friends backing it up, then grabbed my backpack and left the room, late for devotions... again.
Just another morning in Poipet.
Every morning I am just a few minutes late to devotions, but each time I feel like my reason is legitimate - whether it be failing to set my alarm, having a dream about bears attacking my family, or battling a centipede. Oh well. One of these days, I will get there on time.

Most days, I find a time to share a green coconut with Sophy, or an iced coffee, and eat some fruit. I usually ride on the back of Leng's moto to do a home garden visit, weaving through traffic. Dark green Toyota Camrys seem to be the vehicle of choice here. (Jenny, I think of Charlie often, and wonder if his real gravesite should have been here, among his own kind.) I've been reading a few different biographies of women in Cambodia. The stories of the Khmer Rouge, and what people did to survive, are mind-blowing. This is an incredible country.

Tonight, I went to clean up the centipede, and I have a newfound ally in the ants I had until now thought pesky: they ate the whole thing! I looked on the sole of my Chaco but could not find his remains:

Barang on a bicycle

I'm sitting in Rebekah's office right now as the dark sky threatens to pour down rain. I hope it does - it cools us off and cuts the heavy humidity in the air!

Two mornings this week I tagged along with Leng doing site visits to some of the agricultural projects CHO has been involved in. Some families were growing morning glory, which is not something I had ever thought of as a vegetable before. The plants are harvested when they are still small, only 4 or 6 leaves on them. I have yet to try them. We also saw farmers growing soybeans, pumpkins, cucumbers, long beans, and other vegetables I was not familiar with. One farmer had just harvested a nice mung bean crop.

I returned to this farm the following day to buy some mung beans from him. I also asked if I could buy one or two watermelons. They came back with a basket full of eight! They said since they had already picked them I should buy all eight of them, but then they only charged us for six and gave us the other two for free. When we left the farm, I had a backpack heavy with 2 kilos of mung beans and a bagful of watermelons that I struggled to keep steady on the moto as we jolted and slid down the rocky, muddy paths. We've been eating the watermelons around here the last few days; I brought two of them to a barang dinner last night, which everyone brought their favorite fruit to. I've been eating fruit every day, usually some bananas, oranges, and American-bought dark chocolate with almonds (which I am running out of) for breakfast. Yum!

The mung bean casings do not go to waste: they are used in a nearby mushroom-growing operation. Six people had jointly obtained a piece of property (not sure whether it was rented or purchased) to grow a few varieties of mushrooms on.

We also visited the man who had taught these people how to do this. He has been growing mushrooms for over 6 years, and for the past 2 years he has been writing a book about it. This book will include everything he has learned himself as well as all the research he has been able to find that goes beyond his experience. I think it will be several volumes long. Here he is:


He served us several cups of tea throughout the morning as he talked with Leng about his recent work. The whole conversation was in Khmer, so I sat back, drank my tea, and took in the sights around me: he lived in a wooden house on stilts above the water, with a very steep set of steps leading up to it. Underneath this house was where he grew the mushrooms, in a large area enclosed by tarps on all sides. We walked barefoot in the mud and rice hulls up and down the aisles of mushroom spores growing in small plastic bags full of various substrata.


The reasons for these agricultural projects are many, and intertwined: since CHO started as an anti-trafficking organization originally, agricultural projects were started with some families as a means of poverty alleviation. Families here would sell their children to feed the rest of the family or they would leave during the day to work, leaving their children more vulnerable to being trafficked if they were home alone rather than in school. One of the farmers used to travel across the border into Thailand every day to work, but since he has started gardening, his income is greater than it was before and he is able to stay home with his family. I hope he sends his children to school now too. Here is a picture of the platform people use to cross the border.
Another reason CHO has invested so much in agricultural projects is to support and strengthen the local economy. People will often buy Thai produce because it is cheaper, but if more farmers and gardeners grow a variety of crops and produce in and around Poipet, it will keep more money circulating in the local economy... more about this later.

Rebekah and I talked yesterday about Jill's and my plans here with CHO. We hope to write a program plan for the Hope Transformation Center, a transition home for women who leave the sex trade. Jill and I both have already written similar project proposals as part of our class in Program Planning. This will be a good use of some of the research we have already done, and it will be a great help to CHO, which so far has nothing in place yet as far as a concrete plan for the HTC. They already have a building purchased and floor plans (4 floors), but our main task here would be to write up what would actually be taking place once the program opens up and women start coming into the center. We are both really excited about this, and one of the first things we will do is meet with other organizations (mostly in Phnom Penh - that's where most NGOs are headquartered) that already have similar programs in place. From this we hope to glean best practices and ideas, as well as connections and info-sharing opportunities as we find people and projects that are innovating in this area and doing well.

My agricultural visits thus far have been informative and educational for me, but I hope to integrate them into the HTC plans. Women who leave brothels are often funneled into programs that provide training in handicraft-making, for example, but the handicrafts are not always locally sourced or sold, or even beautiful or marketable. Many of these businesses depend on Westerners to buy and ship these items across the ocean. Being able to grow your own food is always a useful skill, and people always need to eat. I would hope that these women could be further involved in their own communities and contribute to the local economy, as stated above. I'm hoping to build into the program plan a way for those women who are interested in agriculture to get plugged into the ag projects already existing within CHO. The same goes for some of the other branches such as sewing and cooking in the restaurant.

I visited the Safe Haven Center this afternoon, where children in transition stay. It has a big piece of land that can be used for agricultural training, and there is already some vocational training taking place in the form of woodworking and sewing classes. There are hopes and maybe plans to build a Bible school here, and this place might be a hub for CHO activities in the future. On the way there, Rebekah and I rode on her moto, me wearing a helmet with the lining falling out so it kept flopping over my eyes. I took it off once we turned onto the dirt road leading to the SHC. (In a strange way, I like the anonymity afforded by wearing a helmet - I am better able to hide my identity as a barang, though only a little bit.) This road was flooded in several places, and I had to get off and wade through calf-deep water flowing across the road. Several people were swimming around and one guy was trying to fix his car, which looked pretty hard to do considering the water was almost touching the parts he needed to get to! We came to a wooden bridge lashed together with bamboo and wire, and used it to cross... guys kept talking to us in Khmer but we didn't pay any mind. Once we got to the SHC we found out that we were supposed to pay them a "toll" for using the bridge they had built! Oops. We paid on the way back, silly barangs.

Now, I have a bicycle CHO lent me. I can get around on it pretty well, but it is a one-speed so I pedal like crazy to get any kind of speed, and I'm on the bottom of the totem pole in terms of road vehicles. Oh well! Fun times.

Inundation of the senses

Suosday!
That is Khmer for hello to someone you already know. (I thought this would be a good progression from the formal "chump reap suor" from my last post :) )

The last few days have been quite busy. There's a lot going on in Poipet. I noticed that it's a very active city when I went on my first tour through the streets. Several times a day I hop on the back of a "moto," motorcycle, and ride short distances to wherever we need to go. It's sort of like riding a horse, I find - you might want to tense up and hold on tight at first, but the best way to ride is to just relax and let your upper body sway and move with the curves and jolts of the moto. Dust blows up in your face from the street, so I have to close my eyes and sometimes hold my breath when trucks pass. Despite this, I enjoy riding around town, looking around at all the lives dependent on the heartbeat of this small city. There's something about the smell of oily cooking smoke and fresh fish, the brightly colored storefronts and Khmer characters, the laughing teenagers and wandering dogs.

This morning CHO ran a campaign for children's education. They want to increase enrollment in government schools by encouraging parents to send their children to school instead of keeping them home to work or labor for money, or increase their vulnerability to being trafficked. We met early in the morning, waited around a long time for all of the teachers to arrive, and then paraded down the streets of Poipet with flags, loudspeakers playing Khmer music, and banners exhorting parents that their kids being in school is the best thing for them. I came to the campaign dressed in shorts and a tshirt, but all the rest of the CHO staff was wearing their uniforms! I felt bad so Sophy and I made up for it by dressing up to go to lunch afterwards. CHO staff all had lunch at the casino buffet, which is reminiscent of the casinos in Atlantic City. :) This buffet had many Thai and Khmer food items, so I loaded up my plate with as many things I couldn't recognize as possible. I ate some vegetables I could not identify (some of which tasted rooty and soily), boiled lotus root, raw spring rolls, neon noodles, and a bowl of soup labeled chicken coconut. When I spooned through it, I found a big square of what looked like purple tofu. I cut it into pieces and found that the middle was pinkish. I took a bite... and asked what it was. My suspicions were confirmed: pig's blood, congealed. Yum. I couldn't quite finish the whole chunk. Maybe next time.

I went for my second run with Pip this afternoon, and last night the whole running team had dinner together. We talked about what we were learning about ourselves, God, one another, and "running the race" from being part of the running club. It's been neat to get to know so many young Khmer people who are eager to learn and experience new things. One of the boys I was talking to was telling me he has to finish high school, and work at the same time, because his family is very poor. But he wants to go to school in Thailand, and become a pastor and a lawyer. So inspiring; makes me mindful of the opportunities we have here.

Tomorrow is the Sabbath... so in preparation, I tried to clean my new room, which was supposed to have been cleaned before I moved in, but people use the same word to mean different things. I c l e a n e d that room for over an hour and have made a slight bit of progress. Some of the things I found under the bed made me not want to know the history of this room. I mopped 5 or 6 times over and am going to give it another good scrub tomorrow, if I can. I also got a laundry tub and hanger-rack. There's something about washing and ironing clothes by hand that I find stilling, peaceful. As much as I want everything to be clean and in order right now, I need to write a paper. Oh life, when will you let me finish being a student?

Poipet

Chump reap suor!
Hello to everyone back home and abroad, and thanks for coming to my blog. I'm new to this but I figure it can't be that hard, right?
I'm writing this in my new home in Poipet. My head is propped up on two pillows and my walls and ceiling are a little cracked and dirty, but they'll do. I'm on lunch break right now but have to head back to CHO at 1:30. For now, I will try to tell some stories from the past few days.

I flew out late Monday night, after driving through a double rainbow all the way from my family's house to the airport. Both of my flights went very smoothly; I was spoiled by Emirates' delicious food and wide film selection. (David, if you are reading this, I finally watched the Book of Eli.) My layover in Dubai made me want to stay there and check it out, but eastward I continued. Once I arrived in Bangkok, I was in a bit of a daze, but my excitement won out. On my way through the line to get my Thai visa, the guy processing me kept trying to send me to the back of the line because I did not have a hotel in Thailand listened. I told him four times I was not staying in Thailand that night, but he kept repeating that I needed to tell him what hotel I was staying at. I did not want to go to the back of the line and wait forever so I insisted that I was staying in Poipet, so he told me to talk to the woman posted next to him, and he left. I guess I was too much for him! Then, this lady kept looking at me suspiciously because my passport photo apparently did not match my current appearance. Does my short hair make me look that different?! She had to call someone over to verify that it was me.
Once I left the airport, it took me awhile to travel around via public transit. (I felt like such a tourist, doing all the things I learned not to... I knew no Thai phrases and it took me several times to catch onto the bowing and pressing your palms together when addressing someone.) I did not know exactly how to get to the clinic to get my vaccines, so I had to figure out where to go... it took awhile, and I had to switch a couple times to get there, but eventually I got a shot in each shoulder and hopped in a taxi juuuust in time to catch one of the last buses to Aranya Prathet. I had been praying all morning that I would make it onto the 1:30 bus, and I literally got onto the bus about a minute before it drove out. The drive through the Thai countryside was pretty, but long... I arrived in Aranya Prathet and people kept trying to take me to Siem Reap (they did not believe me when I told them I was staying in Poipet, I guess). It was hard to find a tuk-tuk driver that I thought would be reliable. Finally, a guy who spoke decent English offered to take me to Thai immigration. I rode up to a dingy little table outside on the side of the road. He dropped me off there, so I thought this was the immigration office... but after several minutes of wrangling with a group of young guys trying to charge me a "service fee" for processing my visa, and pressuring me to do it quickly before the border closed, I decided I was just going to start walking east until I found the real immigration center. One of the guys handed me a phone just then, and it was Peter, one of the people in my cohort! I guess the guy knew Peter already, and recognized it when I mentioned his and Rebekah's names. I explained the situation to him, and I handed the phone back to the guy, who walked off by himself to talk to Peter. He came back and looked at me and said, "Ok, we go." We walked to the Thai immigration office, and there I met Rebekah. Thank God I made it through all right! Rebekah was so helpful in walking me through the rest of the steps, and we rode in another tuk-tuk to my guest house, which was very nice. We sat down to a dinner with Chomno, the director of CHO, and I got to know them a little bit before going to bed. My room was pretty nice but the A/C was actually too cold for me! I had to turn it off partway through the night. I guess I like sleeping in hot weather.

My first morning with CHO was interesting - we had devos at 7:30 and then I had a meeting with a guy named Leng and the rest of his agricultural team. It has been a bit hard to communicate since I've arrived, and I feel so bad I don't know any Khmer. People have to translate for me, and I feel terrible only speaking to people in English. With time, I'm hoping to learn it. It's a tonal language, so it's more difficult to learn than Romance or Germanic languages. Realistically, three months is a short period of time to learn, but I still want to make an effort to learn the more important and basic phrases.

Yesterday I met with Peter and his housemates, Pip and Jordy. Pip lives here and has been doing lots of sports ministry with kids here. She just started a running club, and last night I became its newest member! We are meeting tonight for dinner, and in November we are running in a 5K/10K here in Poipet. Physically, I've been feeling fine for the most part since I arrived, besides the usual swollen feet and swimming head. I was hoping to run my headache off yesterday, but it came back in the middle of the night. Oh well... I'm sure I'll be fine in a few days' time.

The food is great. I had lunch yesterday with Sophy, a lovely Khmer woman who just recently moved to Poipet to work for CHO. She ordered 3 dishes for us (I love Asian meals where everyone shares), and they were all delicious. Two of them had green tomatoes and pineapples cooked with fish or meat. YUM. We also visited the market, where there were some vegetables I had never seen before, but really wanted to try. If I eat something different every day I don't think I'll be able to sample all the things there are to eat here... sigh. While riding on the back of Leng's moto yesterday, we passed women carrying plates of fried caterpillars on their heads. I had the strongest urge to reach out and grab a handful as we passed.

Leng, the agricultural director, is very helpful and kind, and his wife just had their first child, a daughter. He took me around Poipet and no man's land yesterday, past the casinos and through the muddy, muddy streets. The main drag is paved and so are a few other roads but most of everything else is sticky, clayey mud. My apartment building is on the main road so there are beeps and honks and yells coming in my window during the day, not so much at night. Traffic is exhilarating to say the least - everyone drives giving less berth and caution than I am used to, but there seems to be very little road rage as a result.

I have to head over to CHO in a few minutes, but I will post some more pictures later.

Cambodia!

Yesterday was a long but good day, filled with breadmaking, book reading, music listening, and Cambodia planning. Jill and I had a Skype chat with Rebekah, a volunteer at CHO (Cambodian Hope Organization) who gave us a very informative and helpful view into what our time there might be like. Basically, I would be doing some agricultural work with a guy named Leng who is super enthusiastic about agriculture and tons of fun to be around. Jill and I will both be involved in the process of creating a safe haven for women in the brothels in no man's land, the strip of casinos between Thailand and Cambodia. This will entail some amount of project planning (good thing we had that class! It will come in very handy) and re-establishing relationships with the women in the brothels. CHO also has a strong anti-trafficking program, which we may be involved in as well. A lot of this work centers around poverty alleviation for poor families whose children are at high risk of being trafficked. Jill might be looking at several other organizations during our stay there, but that is still in the formative stages. For now, I am very excited about working with CHO and how things will unfold in the coming weeks.

Sooo... I think I am buying my ticket for this coming Monday. So soon, I know, but I've been chomping at the bit for weeks here now and have nothing to do but read books and bake bread... I love it but I know I am made for more than this! Ha! I still have to get a couple books in order. I feel a bit overwhelmed but mostly just excited and ready to roll. I have most of my essentials ready to pack: tshirts, skirts, malaria pills, badminton set, and now all I need to get is some dark chocolate.