Then & Now.

1.
Growing up in Sipacapa, a small village in Guatemala at 9000 feet above sea level with no electricity or running water, our family did our fair share of visiting fellow villagers. We'd hit the trails and wander up and down hills, past houses with barking and angry dogs, stepping over cow paddies, and eventually arriving at our destination where we would try to get the attention of the owners of the house before their dogs ate us alive.

We'd sit on miscellaneous pieces of furniture in front of the house, and my parents would engage in conversation in Sipakapense, a language I did not speak or understand. I would sit there, along with my brother and sister, having no idea what was being said, drinking super-sweet coffee that had been offered and could not be refused for any reason. These house visits were not particularly exciting and fun experiences for me, and I'd look forward to leaving. Invariably before leaving however, the woman of the house would pinch me on the cheek and say to my parents that she wanted to keep me because I was cute or white or whatever. Same went for my brother and sister.

Now I am in Cambodia and my job here involves visiting villages and sometimes homes, and in some ways, it takes me back to those days in Sipacapa. But now the villagers don't ask to keep me. They ask me to take their daughter and marry her.

2.
Engchy and I got a ride with Sivan in her SUV out to Ponhea Kraek on Thursday afternoon, which was very pleasant. The a/c kept us comfortable. I ate bread and drank a can of Coke. And then I discovered that the highways of Cambodia are straight enough for me to read in the car and not get car sick. Air conditioning, bread, Coke and reading make for an enjoyable ride. But Sivan stayed in Kraek which meant that Engchy and I had to catch the bus back to Phnom Penh.

Busses in Cambodia have a/c as well, but not as strong as you'd like. It gets stuffy in there, so you slide the window open, and then get reprimanded severely by the temperamental driver for letting in the hot air. Cambodians, it should be said, also like their rest stops. On the ride yesterday, we stopped inexplicably several times every five or ten minutes it seemed, and sometimes for fifteen minutes or more. And while this means we always have access to snacks and toilets, it is not the most efficient way to get to one's destination, if you want to know what I think about the matter.

We had just hit the road again after one such stop when we pulled over once more. No explanation was offered nor was one asked for. The driver got up and began rummaging through the overhead compartments. He found a rolled up mat and some tools. He took off his blue bus company shirt and hung it up. Flat tire, it seemed. Slowly, people started getting off the bus and began milling around in the roadside mud. We then learned that it was not a flat tire after all, but the bus had broken down and the driver-turned-mechanic was now underneath the thing, banging around with his tools. Reassuring this was not. We had been there for nearly 45 minutes when another bus from the same company, and empty bus no less, pulled up behind us. Loading us onto this bus to continue our jouney might have seemed the sensible solution, but instead the driver of the empty bus got to work on the repairs as well. Fortunately, within another 15 minutes or so, we were back in business and after two or three more hours of Khmer karaoke music videos and stand-up comedy on the TV screen, we arrived at long last in Phnom Penh.

Update.

This afternoon I head back towards Vietnam, to the town of Kraek, where I will be visiting the child survival projects in the area tomorrow before coming back to PP. I hope to get some interviews and some good photos.

I have been planning on moving in with a Cambodian family next week for the remaining two months of my time here, but just learned this morning that it has fallen through. There is another place across town where some young foreigners live and I will be checking it out on Saturday.

If you think of it, please pray for a productive time in Kraek and that housing will work out one way or another.

And now, here is a random photo of a fish in a hotel lobby in Vietnam.