Hike.

When you’re living in a foreign country and working with an NGO Monday through Friday, weekends have the potential to be pretty doggone boring. Fortunately, due in part to my own ingenuity, and also because of good people letting me tag along on their adventures, weekends have thus far been quite pleasant and not very dull at all.

Last Saturday I went fishing with Joke’s family, with her six or seven Cambodian-turned-Dutch children, all more or less trilingual. Theoretically the van Opstals speak English at school, Dutch at home, and Khmer everywhere else, though they sometimes get sloppy and switch it up. Truth be told, sometimes when I am around I have a hard time figuring out when they are speaking Khmer and when it is Dutch. Anyway, we went fishing along the highway about an hour outside of town and as soon as we got there I realized what a complete idiot I was because I had left my camera in my backpack at their house. We fished for a few hours, and among all of us we had four fish to show for it. Four small fish. I teamed up with six year old Elisa, and we had the makings of a stellar duo but somehow we came up dry. Maybe it is because she insisted on changing the bait every thirty seconds, but hey, at least I didn’t have to get my hands dirty putting dead shrimp and bugs on the hook.

Keeping the weekend outdoors streak alive, Geof Bowman invited me to join him and some of his family today on a hiking expedition to a waterfall. A week or two ago he had attempted to hike up to the waterfall but was unable to hack his way through the jungle.

This time, therefore, we hired a local woman to lead us there, armed with a wicked machete, which proved necessary for cutting through vines and branches and what not.

The hike started out on flat ground on a trail surrounded by high grass and the occasional brightly colored exotic flower, but it was not long before we got into the thick of things, pushing into the jungle, doing our best to avoid the nasty vines God designed specifically for the purpose of grabbing hikers in search of beautiful waterfalls in rural Cambodia.

We had to cross a few creeks (or one creek a few times), and fortunately I recalled some lessons learned in the wonderful parks of southern Lancaster County, including the one about how it is far better to just walk right through the water instead of trying to tip toe across slimy and mossy rocks. Normally I am the one managing to get myself soaked in six-inch deep water (just ask Matty or one of the Schrotts), but thankfully I remained upright the entire hike this time, which I should probably attribute to the fact that I was wearing my Bitterman Scale Company t-shirt.

Hacking your way up the side of a mountain in the jungle is an adventure fit for a Bitterman, so you might as well wear the t-shirt. That’s the way I see it anyway.

We did not hike all the way to the top of the waterfall, as this would involve some cliffhanging and we figured what we were doing was already adventure enough. We stopped at this great place where the water comes off huge boulders and into a little pool way up on the side of the mountain, surrounded by bamboo. In the serenity of this Eden-like place one of our explorers, who will remain unnamed, slipped on a slippery boulder and fell into the water. Then another went to help her, and managed to pull her out before falling in herself, in turn bringing her recent rescue back for more. It was rather comical in an I-hope-they’re-OK sort of way. While we sat there, taking a breather and soaking in the beauty of the place, I took the opportunity to snap off a few self-portraits. You never know when one will come in handy, you know.

I got grief for doing so, however, from a certain fellow adventurer who will go unnamed, though I will say he is Australian and his name starts with G.

When I am hiking, I should tell you that I am picky about a few things. One of these is that people should keep moving and not clog up the trail. I especially get irritated when people ahead of me stop when we’re crossing makeshift bridges or other particularly tricky areas where balance is an issue and life and limb are at stake.

Or when people ahead of you stop, requiring that you also must stop, and unbeknownst to them you happen to be standing in fire ant central. This is neither pleasant nor acceptable. Also, I require ample space between the person in front and behind at all times. You don’t want branches and prickly vines swinging back and hitting you in the face. That is no one’s idea of a good time. Also, it is wise to do whatever possible to prevent human dominoes on the trail, in the unfortunate event that someone takes a spill, which is known to happen. Ideally I will be either first or last in the caravan, as either will allow me to set my own pace and create an ideal buffer zone.

With these factors in mind, and the peripheral fact that I had to relieve myself, I got a little head start on the hike back down. I was feeling pretty good about myself, scaling my way down the side of a mountain through a myriad vines, all the while aware of the ever-present possibility of a deadly poisonous snake attack (which I really just say to stir tingly feelings in you, the reader, and to make the story more dramatic).

The trail, as you’ll recall, had just been created for us an hour or so before, so it was not easily distinguishable. All the same I was feeling pretty confident that I was going the right way. That is, until I found myself at a creek crossing which I didn’t recognize. A foot or so in front of me was a big green hanging fruit and it was swarming with fire ants.

I began to wonder what it would be like to get lost in a jungle like this, separated from humanity, so desperate that eating big green hanging fruits swarming with fire ants was a necessity just to stay alive. My thoughts, fortunately, were soon interrupted by the sound of my no longer estranged fellow adventurers passing about ten feet from me. It was like the movies where someone gets shipwrecked and is wasting away on the beach of a tropical island when all of a sudden, he or she opens his or her eyes ever so slightly, revealing that a ship has appeared on the horizon and is coming to the rescue, thus ensuring a happy ever after. At this point the music starts soaring to new heights, giving viewers everywhere goosebumps and, in the case of female viewers, perhaps a knot in the throat and a tear in the eye if this means he or she will be reunited with the one he or she loves. Actually, in this case, it wasn’t nearly as dramatic as a movie. They didn’t see me at first, and judging by their conversation, hadn’t even noticed I was unaccounted for, so I said hello and added, somewhat hypothetically, “Oh, is that where the trail is?�

On the drive home I was given an array of flower petals by the youngest of the Bowman’s children, and I pretended to be eating them, which she found rather amusing. She hadn’t made a sound all day, and I wanted to make sure she knew how to laugh, which, it turns out, she does. After maybe fifteen minutes of being given flower petals in exchange for funny faces and taps on her head with my water bottle, I decided to read St. Augustine’s Confessions. At this she fell asleep, and I don’t blame her. Honestly, you can’t really expect a three year old Cambodian girl to be interested in a saint who lived in Africa in the fourth and fifth centuries.

Svay Rieng, pt. II

This weekend I made my second trip to visit the Christian Response to HIV/AIDS (CRHA) program in Svay Rieng, in the southeast corner of Cambodia known as the "parrot's beak" for the way it juts out into Vietnam. Tearfund, an evangelical development organization similar in many ways to World Relief, partners in the CRHA program. On this occasion, Tearfund reps Sophie and Leu were visiting from the UK, so the trip was for them. All the same, I did manage to get some photos out of the deal.

I never tire of views like this out the window.

Five dollars a night. Seatless toilet, no hot water, but a fan, a bed, and CNN.

There are shades of green in Cambodia you have never seen before.

Before you know it, teenagers will start putting ropes through their noses. Just wait.

A demonstration of how to bandage a wound of someone with AIDS.

On the outside looking in.

Cute little son of a gun...

... and he wouldn't stay away from the camera.

Christians at a CRHA training session, taking time to sing and worship God.

This woman has AIDS but you wouldn't know it by her radiant smile.

You should have seen the progression: in the first photo I took they look half confused, half scared, half angry, and by the end they're smiling and sticking their tongues out for Pete's sake.

Engchy sitting in the restaurant. I have never in all my days met someone who enjoys English idioms quite as much as he does. When you come here you'll find out what I mean.