March 28

My mom is visiting for the next couple of days, so this morning we went to the Killing Fields, maybe 20 kilometers outside of Phnom Penh, at a place called Choeung Ek. The Killing Fields are the infamous burial grounds from the Khmer Rouge genocide. The ride was distracted with happy conversation, so when I stepped on the soil of the Killing Fields, I wasn't prepared for all of the misery it would embody and inhabit. I've lived in Cambodia for almost 7 months now. Somedays I still feel so far from understanding Khmer culture, but everything about these moments made me realize what my heart has learned.

When we first entered, there was a small building with a high ceiling, glass windows revealing thousands of skulls stacked upon each other in disarray. Few signs were posted around different monuments, grave sites, and trees. It was early morning and quiet, a lady at the foot of the monument gave me a stick of incense to mourn and offer in grievance. At first I felt nothing, I don't know these people. Yet we passed burial grounds, mass graves, suddenly the skulls grew eyes and faces, turned into the faces of my children, of my students, of members of the community I now call home, and I began to shake and cry hysterically. My throat began to feel swollen and tight, and I started gasping for air, as European tourists walked past, snapping photos. Everytime it rains, more bones and clothing are unearthed and unburied from the ground, and everything about my humanity felt deeply violated. How could we do this to one another? How could this happen? There was a beautiful tree at the end of the path, a weathered wooden sign nailed to the base. The sign explained that the bodies of children were beaten against this tree. Later, I saw this area/situation depicted in a painting in a museum, of a man holding an infant by the leg, arm in full swing, ready to bash the body against the trunk until he/she was lifeless. Another tree, called the "Magic Tree" was told to have held a speaker where the KR (Khmer Rouge) would play music as loud as possible, hoping to drown out the moaning of its victims.

Next we went to the Toul Sleng Museum, which once functioned as the prison and interrogating center of the KR. Inside were empty rooms and cells, barbed wire. One room had an old metal cot with tools resting on top, what looked like a garden trowel and an empty plastic gas can. On the wall hung an antique-looking photograph of a man lying naked on this cot, limbs ripped off, body poured over with kerosene and burned, most likely alive.

Before we entered in, a man at the gate put his hat out, begging for money. He wore long sleeves and pants, but his face and neck were visible and had been horribly burned. He looked at me with his one eye, his face and ears completely melted off, missing one arm, he stretched the other towards me with his hat. He looked like one of those comic book villains who lives underground, scheming and seething in the sewage tunnels. I turned my face away so he wouldn't see me cringe. It wasn't at him as much as everything else. The difference is, this isn't a blockbuster summer hit movie, this isn't comic books or superheros. This is real life, and sometimes the pain can seem unbearable.

it's all business in my kitchen (yeah, i don't know what i'm doing)

March 17

“These people, more or less native to Chile, had this theory, or maybe belief is the better word for it probably, that all people carry all of their relatives with them. Like in their blood, in their heads. Their point was that not only are you of the same blood as those in your bloodline, but you carry all of their memories with you, all of their souls. You carry their dreams and their pains and their anger and everything. Raymond was talking a lot about the bad stuff you carry. Like if your relatives died in some wrong way.”

“Sounds terrifying.”

“No, they made it sound okay. It’s like a density thing. Apparently they wanted that density of soul. Apparently they see the soul the opposite we do, where it’s this light wispy ghost thing. They think of it like a mountain. Like a mountain each of us carried around, and you want your mountain strong and dense, because that means your family has lived lives of great experience. But the trick I guess is to find a way to move around.”

“With your mountain.”
“Yeah. This is where I got a little lost.”

“Well, I guess you can hear from these people, the dead and the people who share your blood, your parents first and everyone else, aunts and uncles, on and on—So the point is, these are the people you’re responsible to. You’re literally carrying them with you at all times. You’re you but you’re also them. You die and become of a chorus, a voice in a chorus. And so when we talk, you and I, we’re speaking on some level with the voices of thousands.

It’s just this illusion we live with, the illusion that we want to forget things. That we need to forget so we can live, because everything is too much, our burdens are so great we need to self-lobotomize, at least partially, chemically, or whatever, right?

But these people want to carry around everything and everyone. They walk with thousands in each step, speaking with thousands with every word. They forget nothing, you know—they recognize the weight of the mountains.”

-You Shall Know Our Velocity! (Dave Eggers)

So it’s a little much and prophetic, but the bold part, this illusion that we need to be free and forgetful: I like this, I empathize with this. It strikes this sort of innate chord, that’s new and unsullied, yet familiar, comforting. Why do we do this? Maybe I’ve experienced things that have been shocking or painful, but I never want to forget them, they minister to my living, they define me. Nothing is too much. Sorry I write about books instead of my real life. I have a really good life.

March 15

Chard moved away (my student who used to live next door, pictured above), last weekend, after his uncle, Rithy, became so furious at the expulsion of his nephew Som Oun (Chard’s older brother), resulting in his resignation as assistant dean, and his general hatred/resentment towards anyone foreign to Cambodia. I don’t really understand the man, who once used to tell me daily I was beautiful, giving me looks that filled me with a shivering discomfort and slew of misgivings, adding comments like, “I am old, but I still like the young girl.” Last year he taught all of the Bible classes for High School at CAS, and now, I am unsure of his title. Out of his mouth often come disagreeable, peculiar, irreverent comments; and his actions are equally frustrating and discouraging, sucking me dry of compassion. He now refuses to look me in the eye, to even listen to me speak, yet he seems to bleed a generous amount of fan-following charisma, enough to make benevolent Khmer women beg to marry him. I don't understand this. Life is not just. What goes around does not always come around. More often than not, it doesn't (seem to). But this will never change. I wish I understood, or that something could be said, or exist, so that I may.

Yet, it wasn’t more than 3 days later, when Chard, during break time, pulls 5000 reil out of his shirt pocket, “I save the money so I can come visit you. Teacher, I wait after school and go home with you, okay?" He doesn’t buy a snack during break time to pay for the motodope. That afternoon, I had to work late, but Liz took him home to our apartment, I arrived to him sitting in the desk, watching a movie on Liz’s computer, turns around and faces me with a grin as wide as a jack-o-latern. There’s no one sweeter than him. Nobody who loves me quite like my Chard. ♥

chea dalin's again - engaged! - liz, a first time baby octopus eater

March 12

Last Thursday, my most beautiful girl, Seila, fell face-first into the mud. Naro pushed her a little too hard on the swings, and her light little body flew like a crash course dummy, hit the ground, and skidded just a couple feet. When her body finally came to a halt, a few moments passed when she just laid there limp. I ran over, panicked and bewildered, wracked with guilt. I felt like a horrible teacher, I'm going to be a horrible mother, I was supposed to be watching (and I was! How do you prevent these things? You can't). I never know these things, but to me, she looks Sri Lankan, she speaks Khmer, but she looks different than most, her skin is darker, richer, big black eyes. Her hair is thick and curly instead of flat and straight. I heard a kid once point to her during lunch, "Seila is very black." and in Cambodia where whitening lotion lines the drugstore shelves, that's not a compliment. I think they're crazy. After Sopaul had over-watered the grass after a surprising heavy night of rainfall, she stood up, mud in her nose, twigs in her hair, her clothes filthy with soil. I brought her up to the bathroom, turned on the shower, while the girls all followed, crowded in front of the stall. She stared at me hopelessly, the water ran off her face and body, brown and filthy as it washed down the drain. She started to cough up some mud, while the girls started to giggle as they watched, "Seila takes a bath in the school with all her clothes on?" I shooed them out, changed her out of her old uniform, hung it up on the line, and after she threw on a spare uniform from a dorm student, we returned to the class. "Do you hurt anywhere?" I asked. "No," she said nonchalantly, and grabbed her books. Cambodian girls may look precious, but they're tough. In Cambodia culture, they grow up working a whole lot harder than boys. And at least in my class, they cry a lot less.

In other news, I'm reading a book where the main character states, "Travel is a distraction for the unimaginative." He goes on to say, "Travel is selfish, the money could be used to feed hungry stomachs, yet instead it only feeds hungry eyes." Yet I can't seem to get the bug of wanderlust (n. - a very strong and irresistible impulse to travel) out of my system. Then this character, Will, discovers that his best friend has been killed in a car accident, simultaneously earning a large sum of money in a sort of unusual and whimsical way, and then, in one week, embarks on a disheveled adventure around the world, distributing this money to poor, random strangers he sees fit, putting it in pouches made from folded graph paper, attempting to tape it to donkeys.

Maybe I've just been reading too many back issues of Action Asia magazine, but if I were to go anywhere in SE Asia, for strictly reasons geographical, it would be Sri Lanka. It's know for its white sandy beaches, tropical jungles, and killer surf, but I was reading an article about how 2000 years ago, the son of the Emperor in India convinced the king of Sri Lanka that all the birds and beasts of his land should be protected from human harm and allowed to roam free. According to the magazine, “This imperial persuasion gave birth to the world’s first wildlife sanctuary.” And apparently Sri Lanka has some of the most spectacular, startling, yet seldom-visited national parks in the entire region of Asia. My eyes are hungry, selfish - much more longing to be filled than my stomach (or the desire to fill anyone else's either, i guess, uh, yikes??). To me, this sounds like paradise. Anyone want to come with?

at chea dalin's engagement party

March 6

Today, like most days, I saw a homeless woman on the street, standing barefoot by a street vender. Her feet were black like charcoal, clad a purple t-shirt with the sleeves ripped off, gray black hair voluminous with knots. Her face was weathered, beautiful, poignant, austere, and pursed between her lips were 3 cigarettes, and then another limp between her fingertips, held up against the smoldering tips of the 3 others, attempting to light a 4th. She inhaled deeply, and when our eyes met, I immediately looked away. It’s one of those moments, when, even if you had your camera (unless you were ignorant or insensitive or both), you wouldn’t stop or let it be known you were looking at her long enough to take her picture, or make her known a worthy lamentable spectacle. But you do wish you had the highest pixel SLR in the corners of your eyes, for those obscure, unsettling moments you wish to always unjadingly remember.

CAS just started a 100 day fundraiser to raise money for construction of a new school building and computers, and we’re still in the first week, so we haven’t yet lost our steam. The goal is for each student in the class to raise $1 everyday for 100 days, an implausible goal to single-handedly raise $3000 (because I have 29 students to raise for, and then myself. The school as a whole wants to raise $40,000, which is 10 times the amount the average Cambodian citizen might make in 1 whole year). My helper doesn’t do much but make excuses why she can’t spare a bit of time to help me, and she’s older than me (age is the determinable factor of respect), so in Cambodia, it works every time. The staff seems to think the best and only way to raise money is to sell food (and it’s valid, Khmer’s love food). But it’s hard to sell food to poor people and receive much profit, and my 6-year-old kids are great at demanding I go home to my tiny kitchen and bake the rest of my life away. Today I made Norwegian coffee cake and popcorn. Yesterday I made peanut butter cookies and muffins. I sell most of it for either 7.5¢ (300 reil) or 12.5¢ (500 reil). Go me, the new pseudo-domestic Trina (who could potentially increase your risk of diabetes). The school has become a frenzied marketplace. It’s a competition between classes. It’s exciting, exhausting, and much more stressful. My kids love it, though. I’m tired. It takes hours to buy and prepare, on top of all my other work which occupies enough time as it is. I’d like to think that the school appreciates my efforts, but all it really needs, and wants, is my money, which I’m not bringing in much of.

Other than that, I’ve been trying to scrimp on a budget I’ve continually proven inept in keeping. Been occupying my small amount of free time with old pirated Malloy produced surf films, McSweeney’s literature, and all 3 seasons of Arrested Development. Mom is coming in 3 weeks. I can’t wait. Can’t wait. Can’t wait.

March 2

go HERE to view my photos
Normally, I try my best to fit in, blend in, become invisible (when I go out to town, it never works). I avoid talking much to street people, with conditioned fear as a foreigner that I’ll receive my best attack of swindle; not from everybody, but most likely, at least, from someone. I tell the motodope in a quiet voice, “turn right, turn left, stop here (baht s-dam, baht chveng, choop ah-nee).” Hoping he won’t notice that I speak Khmer horribly with an American accent (if they know you’re American and you say you don’t have money, they call you a “liar”, the thing with me is that I don’t look like your stereotypical American, at least not when my mouth is closed, or so i've been told) I try to buy green beans in the open market, instead of asking for ¼ of a kilo (which failed miserably a previous time), I pick up a handful and dump it on the scale, grab a potato or two, maybe a carrot or tomato and ask in a quick and mumbling voice “Banh Manh ah-nie (how much for these here?)” hoping their reply is slow and over-articulated so I can catch the price and translate it in my head without her noticing my incomprehension of the language, “Manh?” (how much?), “Prohm pi roy" (5 prohm + 2 pi = 7 prohm pi, khmer only counts in intervals of 5, roy = 100, 700 reil is only 17½ ¢ US). Anyways, before this I always felt too guilty or intimidated to take pictures of the locals and their daily lives. I’d be a horrible photojournalist. Why do you want to take a picture of this stranger? Is it because they are bizarre, shocking, ugly, and/or pitiable? Is it because you haven’t seen it before and you don’t belong here? I don’t care for alienating people. And maybe it would be better and easier if I weren’t trying to go about a normal life here. But Liz and I decided that it would be a shame if we went all the way home without a picture to show of horrible, whimsical Cambodian life, of the street food, and poverty, Buddhism, beggars. So we put all of our fears and excuses aside and went to the Mekong riverside, and took some pictures. I actually got shooed away and shut down many a times, treated 100% like an obnoxious tourist (which there aren't many of, and Cambodians are not very polite) “get away from my food unless you are going to buy it, give me more money, this is not enough”. I got past the awkward requests to stick my camera is a stranger's face. My first attempts at photography in quite awhile, I’m glad to have captured them. I posted a couple I liked on flickr. Click the link above to view them, I hope you take a look and enjoy a few, or comment and let me know what you think of dear old corrupted Cambodia.