PT's Cruzin Cambodia

It's 2009 already and I've just clocked over two and a half years volunteering with Sovanapoom Care in Cambodia.  From the first blog post here back in June 2006 when I was so excited about the prospect of living in another country, to my first days experiencing the sights, smells and sounds of my new country.  Then the experiences of getting to know the people, the culture and seeing so many heart breaking realities of people living in poverty and desperation here. 

It has been a progressive journey.  I have tried to share my thoughts and emotions along the way here and hopefully given an insight into a different world view, the one that I see from here in Cambodia.  Along the way I have grown and come to understand life from here a little more.  Sometimes I read back on the old blog posts and wonder who that wide-eyed young girl is who wrote a new blog every day and found a story around every corner.  Sometimes I wish I was still that wide-eyed young girl. 

However with maturity comes a lot of understanding and hopefully some wisdom.  I once would have cried at the sight of a family’s sleeping area consisting of only a matt and mosquito net, for all five children to share.  Now I have come to understand that when the children have grown up in this manner they will choose to share their bed even if given the option of their own.  They simply prefer the company, I don't need to change that. 

I’ve seen many volunteers come and go and seen the children make new friends and build relationships with each of them.  Sometimes I wish I could just experience it all afresh again, the excitement of a new country, the potential of a new work and the unknown of it all.  But most times I’m glad to have the experience I have had here and appreciate knowing my job, knowing the children and in some ways getting to know this country and its’ ways, albeit very strange to me. 

For the past couple of weeks I’ve taken on something I never thought I could trust myself to do.  I’m looking after a little girl who’s just come to the Centre.  Since I first dreamed of working in an orphanage I have always been cautious about the potential of getting close to the children all the while knowing I wouldn’t be there long enough to see them grow up.  So I have never given my all to the kids, I have always held back to some degree.  I hate to think that they would love me and I would leave them, I know they have already been through enough heart ache in their short lives.  Now I have been here awhile I regret taking that option to some degree, but my reasons still stand.   So I don’t do this lightly but this child is the youngest in our care and since I first brought her to my place a couple of weeks ago she has clung to the security of me and to my house, inside the Centre’s walls.  During the day when I am working in the office she often sneaks away from school and sits on my doorstep quietly knocking on my door, crying when I am not home to answer her or giggling incessantly when I do open the door and let her in.  How could I say no to such a sweetheart?

So as it seems for now I will be here awhile yet.  Although I am not so sure about this blog.  I have no plans to remove it however obviously I have not been so faithful in posting updates as in my first year or two.  I will make no promises to update weekly or monthly.  It will happen if and when I feel like it.  It always has, just lately I haven’t felt the need.  To keep up on the news at the Centre check out the newsletters that I write and post on our website for download every two months at www.sovanapoomcare.com

There’s been a lot of things about the culture in Cambodia that I’ve had to get used to since I moved here.  Whilst it has often been a challenge to my western cultural thinking, it has been great to get to know a little of how Khmer people live and their view of the world.

Last week after our Sunday morning breakfast at the local café, on the way home with Thoeun and Peak I asked Thoeun to help me as I took my moto to the local mechanic.  My rear left indicator light was hanging by its wire and I wanted the broken rubber arm replaced.  I assumed it would be easy enough to explain and then I was planning to walk home and return after Church to collect it. 

Wrong, nothing’s that simple around here!  When we arrived a teenage boy met us in the drive way of the mechanic shop, literally just a garage at the side of the road.  Thoeun went straight and parked his bike in the back and was handed a pan, he unscrewed the oil plug and set it up to drain.  Then Thoeun returned to my bike and asked the kid in Khmer if he had a spare part for my broken rubber arm.  It turned out that he did, but as Thoeun explained to me this wasn’t the mechanic but it was his younger brother and he might need some help so we would hang around and wait while he fixed my bike.  No worries.

Living in the city in a western country can be an isolating experience.  We each have our own job, our own home, our own car, our own family and our own friends.  On average, we don’t diverge much from our schedules, go out of our way to help anyone, you’ve pretty much gotta look after yourself.  Much of this I did actually enjoy, the anonymity in public, the personal space, the privacy.  But when it comes to community, the Khmer people have got it sorted, they could really teach us a thing or two.

The mechanic’s kid brother could have told us to come back later cos he didn’t know how to do the job.  It would have been inconvenient but really, it wasn’t his job he was just hanging around to make sure nobody ran off with the place.

Well he didn’t tell us to come back later.  Instead, Thoeun picked up the screw driver and gave him a hand.  While I stood back out of the way, the two guys worked to dismantle the light and with a little added oil to loosen the screws they got it apart.  About half way through the job I jumped out of the way just in time as another moto pulled up in the narrow drive-way of the mechanic shop. 

The older guy was here for an oil change as well, the shop was already busy but he didn’t mind waiting.  Instead of taking a seat, (which was available) he stuck his nose in on what the guys were doing with my bike.  Gave a few pointers and his two bob’s worth.  Meanwhile Thoeun found a new bottle of oil and a funnel and refilled his empty bike. 

Between the three blokes they figured out how to replace the broken arm off my indicator and within 15 minutes it was good as new.  I paid my two thousand riel (.50c) and we were on our way, a job well done and a lesson learned.

Life’s like that here.  I’ve seen it at the beauty salon when there’s not enough employed hands, the friends of the bride will get up and grab a hair dryer or the straightening wand and get the job done. 

Soon progress will reach every corner of this country as people begin to buy their own personal tv’s and don’t need to go to the corner café to watch the boxing game, when the bridge to the city is built and we don’t need to sit around chatting with each other as we wait on the ferry and when people move into brick homes and out of the bamboo shacks that are now stacked in each other’s backyards. 

Hopefully then the fantastic sense of community still remains in tact because a developed country with a strong sense of community and care for one another’s welfare would be a pretty special place to live, even now it’s pretty special.

Well the next season has begun!  I enjoyed a good few weeks in NZ and in Australia but now I’m back to work in Cambodia.  In the month and a half that I was home I seem to have gotten soft when it comes to dealing with most of the everyday bugs and irks that you encounter here in Cambodia.  In a couple of weeks I’ve needed to use my new medical kit issued by VIDA, three times for three different issues!  I think maybe I should get rid of it, I never needed medications and itch creams as much as I have lately!

There’s not a whole lot happening around the place at the moment. I’m living in my new house and Anzac was incredibly happy to see me return and to have his place as the dog of the house restored.  I put his bed in the office when I was away but he slept wherever he could find someone friendly at night and often he just stayed outside, so being back inside the house has made him very happy.

I had some concerns however about what he had been up to when I was away.  We have three dogs that live in the Centre, Anzac, Esther and Siwet.  The first two are owned by myself, John and Tess respectively but Siwet is a brown and white khmer dog that has just hung around the place after one of the boys brought her in.  He has since left and is now living nearby in the village, but the dog has stayed with us. 

Well I thought I might have had a problem to deal with because Siwet and Anzac are very good friends and when I got back it was quite obvious that Siwet had been playing around with a male dog.  Anzac has since had an operation at the Vet’s, but potentially the damage was already done?  The kids told the promiscuous Siwet off for sleeping around and not being married, but the shame of it didn’t seem to bother her!

Last night, after a long and hot pregnancy, Siwet gave birth to six black puppies.  Well that was a relief for me and the kids were happy to tell me that I’m not a grandmother yet.  Alas this morning I was awoken to Ra banging on my door excitedly.  I stumbled down stairs and opened the door.  By the time I got there she had walked away but was very amused at my appearance when she turned back and just had to tell me the exciting news:  Siwet’s had one more puppy overnight, and it’s brown!

I got dressed in a hurry and pulled my hair back with an elastic as I walked through the kitchen to where Siwet and her puppies were snuggled.  Six very black, squeaking bundles of fur and one very dark brown wriggling runt lay by its’ mother.  That’d be right, the last one and a runt at that!  Time will tell what colour he turns out to be, but at this stage I think Anzac and I will get away without paying any child support, it doesn’t look retriever golden to me!

Meanwhile we had a visit from the mother of some of the children here this morning.  She had received news that we had a litter of black puppies and she was demanding we give her three of them.  Three puppies, just like that!?!  She wasn’t divulging her reasons but it’s common knowledge here that black dogs are worth a lot of money because the Chinese believe that when eaten they have healing powers. 

Well that lady was told where to go, she can’t have any of the puppies to sell!  The local interest in the pups continued into the afternoon when we got a visit from the guy who originally brought Siwet to the Centre, when he was living here.  This guy didn’t want to make any claims to the puppies….suprisingly! But he just wanted to make sure that the other lady wasn’t going to get them, he wants the Centre to keep them.  HA!   Sometimes I wonder how anything ever gets done around the place here! 

It seems that each period of time I spend in Cambodia, I go through a different learning phase.  At first it was adjusting to the country and culture, being away from what I knew as home and getting used to all the emotions involved in leaving that homeland.  I think maybe it’s something that happens when you are in a challenging situation or find yourself in a place which is beyond your control, I found myself experiencing emotions I didn’t even know were possible.  I suppose when I look back on it, it was a time of growing up.

That was seven months of transition, then I had some time off back in Aus/NZ.  The next time I returned to Cambodia I felt that I had dealt with all those issues on my last trip and didn’t expect to miss Australia too much or have trouble adjusting.  That time however it hit me again, really hard and fast in the first four months I was back here and on top of that I felt very isolated and longed for friends who understood me and my culture.

This time in 2008 when I returned back to Asia from Aus/NZ I hoped that the struggles I went through in the past two terms in Cambodia were behind me and I didn’t expect to experience the same emotions.  I didn’t, thankfully.  I met another Aussie here in my favourite Phnom Penh café and have been blessed to be able to catch up with Liz most weeks when we head back to Jars of Clay.  It's so good to be able to relate to somebody who gets living here!  Our friendship has been a real blessing to me and I think prevented the return of that previous season’s feelings!  The arrival of Anzac in my life has also helped to keep me company here even when I don’t feel like practicing my khmer with the kids.

What I have been challenged with this time instead was my comforts.  It was brought to my attention how difficult living without even the most basic facilities is.  Since I arrived back in Cambodia in February I have been without reliable power and water almost continuously and at times (sometimes for long periods) I have been sleep deprived.  These three things I have learned are big on my list of needs. 

It hasn’t been easy, when the power blackouts started in Phnom Penh I thought they would only last a week or two, and when the water kept shutting off in my unit I was sure my landlord would fix it.  After six weeks of problems with both power and water  I thought I couldn’t live without a fan or a reliable shower any longer in the 40 degree weather and had to find somewhere else to live. So I moved to the island and I should have expected it in rural Cambodia, but that’s when the challenges really began!  I guess I have learned just a little about what most of the poor in this country have to go without.  What a big part in our lives power and water plays!

Now I think this season is over for me too.  On Saturday I moved into my new home: a unit within the grounds of the Community Centre.  So far mine is the only one complete but we are working on building 8 units for volunteer accommodation. Now I have water pressurized and (soon to be) filtered through the 20metre high water tower in the backyard.  I (usually) have power during the day between 8 and 8 from the generator and at night for a fan through a 12v battery. My unit is just great for me and Anzac, after living in a windowless room for three months, it’s real luxury!  It's built to Aussie building standards, but in the Khmer style with large windows and a mezzanine floor for sleeping upstairs, kitchen and living area downstairs. I even have an inside bathroom that includes a real flushing throne (trust me, I feel like a queen sitting on it after using a squat for so long!!) in my bathroom AND, wait for it….a bath!

I just wonder, what the next season will bring for me here…!?

A few months after I arrived in Cambodia back in 2006 a small family of three girls asked for a home at the church.  They were confident, happy and didn’t seem at all like the usual neglected, unloved urchins who normally turn up on the doorstep.  These children’s mother died two or three years ago, but their father loves the three girls very much.  They had been sleeping under a tree nearby in the village since they lost their house.  We never found out just how they came to be there, but this small family had found themselves in a desperate situation.

Since that time the three girls and their dad have made Sovanapoom home.  The children have proven themselves to be very clever and their dad has continued to love them as he helps out around the place and camps at the church too.  It’s been of some concern that the girls’ father has had health problems for some time, recently he had a blood test and the results were returned positive for HIV and TB.

Two acronyms of five little letters that plague the developing countries of the world.  Undoubtedly practically every country of the world.  There is some work going on with NGO’s and the government to educate people here about HIV/AIDS but unfortunately it seems like it’s too little too late for a lot of men, their wives and their innocent children.

After receiving these results for their father, we had the three girls tested.  There is a clinic in the city which is funded by an NGO and provides free testing and treatment.  John and Tess took the girls there for the blood tests and a couple of days later I returned with the girls and Thoeun to get the results. 

It was one of the hardest things I’ve had to do.  Sit with a 14 year old girl and her two sisters awaiting their call up to find out if they were confirmed with the virus or not.  Individually the doctor asked the girls into her office and she talked to them about the consequences if they did return a positive result.  She told them about the virus that could be in their body, she talked regular hospital visits and that she might feel sick, but that there was medicine to help them.  After that the doctor asked if each girl wanted her to open the envelope and look at their results.  Only after they agreed did we hear the much anticipated result. 

From eldest to youngest the girls were called in, the first result was negative – a good thing and smiles shot all around the office like an infection.  The second envelope opened and a red stamp had marred the page with the word positive. 

My heart sank for this beautiful child who I have come to know and love.  She’s such a happy bundle of joy, talks with a chirpy chipmunk voice, always outgoing and positive despite regularly having the nurse deal with sores on her head and skin even to the point of having all her hair shaved off a year ago when they got so bad.  Nothing has been able to dampen the spirit of this precious little one and to my surprise, not even the words spoken by the doctor could sadden her.

Next the little one, six years old was brought into the doctor’s office.  She sat upright in the chair swinging her legs and enjoying the attention of every adult in the room.  The doctor had the same conversation with her as her sisters and very politely she responded yes to the question of opening the envelope.

The same sores that her sister has suffered on her head and body have also affected her.  We hoped beyond hope that the result would not be the same but my faith wavered.  The doctor read the result and showed us the paper simultaneously.  Negative.  Thoeun and I responded with surprised and somewhat questioning looks.  The doctor read our reaction well and advised that at a young age children often return with a negative result and she advised that we should return in three months for another test. 

The prevalence of HIV transmitted from parents to children is a large problem in this country of 13 million people where more than 123,000 people are living with HIV/AIDS.  . 

An NGO funded hospital in the city is providing medication for any infections she needs treatment for and in the meantime we are working on hers and our faith. This girl, her family and the children here are all believing that she is getting better and are staying happy that she will be able to overcome this diagnosis.   The family is all aware of the situation clearly and they are continuing to keep a positive outlook.  Already we have seen one young boy here at the Centre receive a clean bill of health after being diagnosed with HIV and these girls believe strongly that they can have the same outcome, so please keep them in your prayers.