Count Your Blessings

Last weekend Virginia, her daughter, a woman named Kim, and I went to Siem Reap, a providence 6 hours away from Phnom Penh traveling by bus. Luckily the buses here honk every 5.8 seconds and play Cambodian music videos. Always screechingly loud. Always filmed in slow motion. Thank the dear Lord for Dramamine. The purpose of the trip was to see Ankor Wat, which is an ancient temple in the jungles of Cambodia, and to see the floating village. I was really excited to see Ankor Wat because I learned a bit about it in my Religions of the World class, but I was disappointed because my company did not want a tour guide so I didn't really know what anything meant. I knew a tiny bit just from the statues of Vishnu and Buddha, but other than that I had to just appreciate the fact that I was standing in a really old place. I wished Dr. Cindi Strong was there to be my tour guide and I wished my mom was there to care about it as much as I did. It was roasting under the merciless sun, and Virgina and her daughter kept saying "the floating village is the thing REALLY worth seeing... it's way better than any old temple." I had heard people say that I just had to see the floating village, that it was a big tourist attraction in Siem Reap. What do you picture when you hear "floating village"? Well in my Disney-princess mind I pictured a fancy restaurant on the water where there were white lights and waiters with tourist-happy smiles, and people who were lucky enough to live in the "magical floating village." To my dismay, the floating village is one of the poorest communities in Cambodia. The people are so poor that they can't even afford to build their rickety wooden shacks on land because the police charges money per sqaure meter. So they built their homes, which were light enough to be picked up and carried off by six men, on the brown water of the Tonle Sap Lake. Some families of 4-7 people lived on boats. Stop picturing a house boat. I'm talking about a row boat. There they fished, traveled to the shores to sell their fish, and slept. When the rainy season came many would tip over, break, or flood and the families would drown. In the village there were floating markets, floating churches, floating petrol stations and one floating school. It was very awkward for me to be sitting on a large tour boat, pointing and looking in on their misery. Sometimes there would be tiny boats holding beggars and small children who would drive their boats right up to the side of the tour boats, jump into the tour boat from the back, and try to sell the tourists soda, bracelets, etc. Our tour guide had grown up in the village and he warned us not to buy from them because those children needed to be in that one school or else they would have no chance of getting out. And if one child received money, then the rest may be beaten if they came back empty handed. Plus, it's extremely dangerous for them to be jumping in and out of boats. Just 4 days earlier a 5 year old girl jumped out of a tour boat but fell and was decapitated by the rutter. Her mother in her boat jumped out and held the two pieces of her daughter to her chest. This was normal in the floating village. Our guide stoicly told us that he has seen a ton of dead bodies in the water from drownings, disease, or rutter accidents. Why not live on the shores of the water? Well in high tide they did; they would move their homes to the shores under the trees, but they were not safe from peril there either because deadly cobras would drop out of the trees and slither into their homes to kill family members. Why not try to find jobs in the city? According to our tour guide, it was impossible even for the educated ones who knew English. Let's say you wanted a job to work at a hotel. The owner would hire you but when the owner was not around the manager would say "you will give me the money you make or else you will lose your job." And the owner will never believe you over the manager. Our guide often thought about saving his money he earned from tours and going to school in the city, but then he would always come to the realization that without him, his family would starve. He said it was better if they all ate together than for him to be successful by himself. So this is the life of the floating villagers. They followed the migrating birds who knew where the fish were, and they struggled to survive. I asked our guide how long it had been around and he said 80 years. I couldn't believe that in 80 years nobody had done anything to help these people get out! At least not that I could see. No, instead tour boats filled with foreigners who pay $20 each to take pictures of naked toddlers float by every day. But who goes back? Who helps? I just might have to someday... Seriously. To tie it all in, many foreigners or people from the city come and promise parents that they can give their daughters good jobs in the city, but of course the children and girls are sold into the sex industry.

So that was last weekend. I got back on Tuesday and had another productive week at Daughters. I recieved a new assignment to paint pink butterflies and flowers on the currently white walls of the spa room. Fun! I've also been spending a lot more time with the Canada team on our time off. I spent the night at their house 3 times last week... It's really nice sharing a bed with a friend and waking up to a pink and blue stuffed elephant dancing in my face by the hands of giggling girls. They are truly wonderful friends, and are a God-send to me! They let me use their towels when I shower, and loan me shirts and shorts when I forget my PJs. They beg me to go places with them and then never let me pay when I mooch off of their meals. We watch chick flicks on a lap top and eat popcorn and candy. We laugh, tell each other about our lives, and lay on our backs and discuss relationships and love. We never cease to be amazed that although we are only less than 10 hours away from each other where we're from, God had us meet halfway across the world because he knew we'd need each other on this trip. Last weekend we went swimming at a sports center and even though it was only 10 in the morning we got totally fried! (sorry mom... I put sun block on my face and ears...) We spent the rest of the weekend slathering aloe vera on each other and laying in front of the fan, repeating the sentence "why did we DO this to ourselves?!" over and over again. The tropic sun is no joke! It was a bonding experience I'd say.

Anyway, you're pretty much all caught up. I only have 2 1/2 more weeks and I'm almost positive I am going to cry when I have to tear myself away from the spa girls. Sena, Srey Po, Srey Po 2, and Sok Terwee... They are my sisters.