A Farewell to the Blog that Never Was

Somewhere on the border between Disappointing and Disastrous sits the blog you are reading now. Even I have to admit that I expected more out of me. In the past the only thing I was more full of than hot air was words. My last trip through Asia literary burst with stories. I couldn't keep my hand from a pen. I couldn't fill enough journals.
Talk about a change of heart - or mind. Or just perspective. The journal I took with me this time is about 1/8th full. And half of that is scribbled notes and half-finished sentences. So what's my deal? Have I really run out of words? (Ok, Ok I can hear the snickering already - we all know that is about as possible as the sea running out of salt.) But if it's not that, then what is it? Who took my stories? Where did the words go?

Hold that thought. There is bigger news afoot - for those of you who don't know, I'm headed home. Yes - I'm leaving again. Or maybe I'm returning. That's a story in itself. (Or perhaps an entire book) But the fact is I'll be Texasbound on March 9th. Which means that this disaster of blog is taking its last, dying breath. And, yes, I'm still struggling for words.

I returned to the pages of my journal and found two entries that might provide some insight into the stories that never appeared. I'll include them both on this final farewell to the blog that never took flight. For some of you, they will be a disappointing goodbye. For those of you who know me well - well, then you know most of my goodbyes are disappointing.

So fare thee well, Cambodia. You were and are a big part of who I have become. My lack of words is no reflection on your inspiration. Some stories, I guess, simply defy words.


December 16, 2009

Some days - most days - I feel drained of words. I don't know where they went or if they are hiding from their inadequate ability to describe what I'm seeing and doing. But, for once in my life, I seem to be speechless.
Cambodia is as hard to describe as it is to define. It is crowded and lonely. Filthy and clean. Fresh and decaying. Old demons lurk in the shadows cast by the hope of new beginnings. Echoes from the past are drowned out by cheers for the future. Its complexity rivals anywhere I've been.

It is not and will never be my home - but it has changed my perspective on life in general and on home in particular. It is hard to distinguish between my personal experience and the life I lead here, but they are two very different things. My experience has been one of self-discovery, of self-discipline, of loneliness and callousness to my surroundings. But my life here is about new places, new people, meaningful work, traveling, and village visits. What is happening on the outside does not always coincide with what is occurring on the inside.

And in the light of it all, I have learned that somethings become more important the longer you are away from them. Those 'true love' things - family, friends - never fade with time or distance. Indeed, they only grower brighter from afar.


January 4, 2010

It isn't true that I haven't written since I arrived here six months ago. I've written plenty - plenty of letters, emails, gmail chats, various articles, and more than 20 reports. But it is true that this experience hasn't spurred me to write like my previous journeys. Was it because of how difficult it has been to adjust? Because of how busy I've been otherwise? Because of a lack of emotion or visual stimulus? No - no - and no. I would like to chalk it up to this experience being so altruistic, so sublime as to defy mere words. But we all know I'm not that deep. I'd like to say that this experience has simply occupied me mind, body, and soul - but that's not quite true either. As with most things, I know it is a combination of reasons - but be that as it may, I stand at the beginning of a new year and that almost always prompts one to look back...

2009 is hard to define - it was a year of personal triumphs, private hells, renewed friendships, and lonely nights. It was year of survival - I survived Lubbock, I survived VIA training, I survived 3 months of flooded roads, amoebas, Thanksgiving and Christmas away from my family, India's inevitable stomach issues, and eating porcupine, red ants, cow brains, and unidentifiable crustaceans. I survived my first half marathon and some of the hottest days and nights of my life. I survived the worlds worst $5 haircut.
It was a year of learning. I learned to teach English (kind of), to speak Khmer (badly), and to ask what I was eating only after I had eaten it. I put three new stamps in my passport. I traveled to six new states in the US. I learned that a good judge of how well a society/city/village is fairing can be determined by the cleanliness of their children and the fatness of their dogs. I learned that I love sunsets, miss the ocean, and want air-conditioning. I was reminded that winter is not my favorite season, beef is not good overseas, and Mexican food is an absolute requirement for my happiness.
I made new friends - and was reminded constantly of how much I love my old friends. I avoided, missed, cherished, took for granted, left too soon, stayed too long, laughed too little, smiled a lot, learned how to cry, learned how to heal, broke, repaired, and loved - loved - loved.

I left - again. I missed important things - again. I saw amazing things - again.

But most of all, I realized that no matter where you are (or where you aren't), at the end of the day - week - month - or year, what really matters stays the same:

Good music is better when someone else listens with you. Cold beer is tastier when shared with a friend. Good food is best enjoyed with the people you love. And nothing in the world matters like the ones that matter most to you.

So 2009 - thanks for the lessons I learned, the stories I never wrote, and the memories I'll never forget.
2010 - you've got big shoes to fill. but I think we are up to it...



And there you have it. As for the stories - they are here. Locked away just beneath the surface. Waiting to be heard. But I've also learned that I'm a much better storyteller than I am a storywriter so if you want to know what really happened, meet me somewhere down in Texas. Or wherever this Road leads me next...

And finally, some much deserved 'Thank You's':

To all those that sent packages that made it late or never at all - they were the highlight of many a restless day
To my oldest roommate for reading the letters that followed the winding path of my self-discovery
To the family that never stopped praying and the friends that never stopped caring - you are my hope
To my newest traveling companion - may VN, Singapore, and India be only the first of many traveling memories
To the climbers, the pool players, the beer drinkers, and table dancers - to the rooftop companions and the beach bums abroad - to all my VIA peeps: thank you for the support that can only come from those who are also walking through fire, for the laughter that is only shared by those who have lived in various Rabbitholes in SEA (and China), and for giving this Texas girl a reason to believe that good people really do exist - at home and abroad.

May the God of your choice richly bless you all!

This isn't goodbye - just bye for now.

Love from the Road
c

A Massacre Has Occurred

Today I lived through the most awful thing that has happened to me since I arrived in Cambodia – more awful than amoebas, more terrifying than my first bike ride in 5 o’clock traffic in downtown Phnom Penh, more horrific than my recent bout with India’s famed Delhi belly. It was a massacre. And I was doing the killing. But don’t feel sorry for the slain – if anything, feel proud of my courage. After all, each of the victims had eight legs and if that isn’t enough to carry you far from the aim of my Raid, then it’s evolutions way of saying you deserve to die.



But honestly, it was horrific. As many of you know, I have an unexplainable and, some say, unreasonable fear of spiders. To many of you this is humorous or endearing – to those of you genetically prone to the same all-encompassing dread, you know it to be serious and well grounded. Anything with more than four legs is better off dead in my book.

Now to the massacre – the she-devil was crouched in my bathroom, fangs glaring at me, awaiting my arrival, to devour me whole. I happen to glimpse her before she could pounce (it’s hard to miss something the size of a golf ball and as black as death on a white tile floor…) and I recoiled faster than she expected. Nor did she expect the entire can of Cambodian Raid to be sprayed in her direction from a good 5 feet away (better safe than sorry – they do have jumping spiders you know). It was about a minute into my fog of cancer-inducing spraying that I notice the odd lump beneath her. About that time a few dozen black dots exploded from this odd lump, followed by a few hundred more (I’m gagging just thinking about it, not to mention the goosebumps…). Yes – the witch was in the process of LAYING her offspring in my BATHROOM. I sprayed until I became worried that I might actually be causing cancer for a few blocks and then watched for a good ten minutes (again from a safe 5 feet – they say the small ones are the worst…) to make sure that nothing was moving. After a “I can’t believe that just freakin’ happened” dance, I decided it was safe to enter the bathroom (after one more good fogging – of the entire apartment) and wash them down the drain. Needless to say, Mommacita was too large for a simple drain and it took me a full half hour to work up the courage to pick her up using my long-handled scrub brush and flush her down the toilet (five times just to be safe…).

They should give badges of courage for such accomplishments! How am I to sleep in that room tonight? (With the Raid can by my side, no doubt!) I considered running downstairs and buying a direct flight home until I remembered that in the far too recent past, my mother witnessed the grandfather of all spiders emerging from what I once considered my safe haven of a bedroom (It was a tarantula in our HOME in Tulia). It appears no place is safe for me to lay my head…

And eventually, I’ll write about something much more compelling like my recent trip to India…But for now I must go upstairs and fog my apartment once more before bedtime. G’Night!

Same Same but Oh So Different: Singapore and the Rest of Southeast Asia

Just returned from a fast and furious weekend in Singapore. The following should give you a decent impression of what I saw and thought. For more, check out my pictures, which are now posted on a new website: http://cbgypsypics.shutterfly.com/


Ways in Which Singapore is Unlike the Rest of Southeast Asia:

1. It is clean. Super clean. Might actually consider eating something I just dropped on the sidewalk, “Oh my word! Is that a cigarette butt?!? How did that get there - someone is going to pay.” clean.
2. It’s efficient. Not only does the mass transit system WORK, but it is also AIR CONDITIONED. Bringing us to point number 3…
3. It is air-conditioned. From the highly overpriced backpacker hostels we stayed at, to the malls the size of small Pacific Islands, to the most wonderful little Indian restaurant where we talked jovially with a sweet Indian woman from Malaysia before lapsing entirely into food-induced euphoria. It was a cool place – literally.
4. You can eat cheap food without worrying about growing worms in your belly or digesting part of the rickety cart that makes up the street food vendors makeshift food wagon because in Singapore they have ‘hawker stalls’ – basically glorified food courts that not only appear much cleaner than the SEA street food generally dripping in dirt and grime but are also either nicely organized and generally efficient and/or (you guessed it) air-conditioned.
5. No one stares at you for being silly enough to walk around being white. I had forgotten what it was like – and what a simple joy it is – to walk down the street without ever man, woman, child and dog ogling you like you just stepped off a UFO with two heads and antenna. Of course, if you decide to spend a morning swimming in the ocean that is spitting distance from the equator with no sunscreen after months of living a hermits life in an industrial cave you call home and therefore rendering yourself the same shade as the famous Singapore Sling, you can prepare yourself for a few odd glances. But that is self-induced and does not count.
6. I saw no men pissing on the streets. For you lucky, lucky Americans who never have to deal with this travesty outside a college frat party or drunken bum in the subway, please let me tell you that all the non-profit organizations, all the government money, all the humanitarian efforts in the world will be a failure until the last man pisses on the streets of Southeast Asia. Until this disgusting habit is broken, we cannot consider ourselves to have made any leeway in creating a better world. Singapore found a more permanent solution: a $5000 dollar fine (and probably a good caning just to make sure you got the point…).
7. There are no mopeds. Or at least precious few. Awaking to the blessed silence that is not broken by the WWWWAAAHHH of a moped was pure ecstasy. I don’t know how they managed to stop the spread of that dreaded two-wheeled killer of serenity but I am beyond grateful.
8. Alcohol is taxed 100%. This is the only negative I could see. That and the fact that you apparently lose some of the exotic excitement of a culture when you add efficiency and modern comforts. The city was amazing – it is true. But it did have the feel of a perfectly planned resort. Nice for a weekend get away from the roar and chaos of a developing country but decidedly predictable.



Ways in Which Singapore is the Same as Other Southeast Asian Countries:

1. Personal space is still a foreign concept.
2. Cutting in line – or ignoring the line – is still considered ok - by older woman in particular.
3. While none of the babies actually cried at the sight of me – I still think I scared a few. Maybe it’s not my whiteness…Maybe it’s me?
4. There are still too many people.
5. There are still things that just don’t make sense to my western mind. Case in point: To save a few bucks, Molly and myself decided to play street bums and buy a couple cans of beer to consume on the corner. Fearing fines above and beyond reason and even possible canings, Molly inquired with the friendly neighborhood 7-Eleven man as to whether this was considered kosher. To which he replied with a big smile, “Oh yes. You may consume alcohol on the street as long as you do not disturb more than two people.” Don’t ask me – some things I will simply never understand.

Down Into The Rabbit Hole (or Charlsea in Wonderland)

You just never know what you are getting yourself into overseas. A short walk ends up being a long, rain-drenched expedition. A trip to the store can turn into an almost hallucinogenic event. And a simple meal is rarely ever simple. So I've taken to calling PP the Rabbit Hole because if you remember the famous book or cartoon movie by Lewis Carroll "Alice in Wonderland" - an unsuspecting white girl falls down a rabbit hole and ends up in a world where crazy things are always happening and nothing makes sense. Thus the comparison to PP...

Today’s entry is just a few Rabbit Hole experiences for you. It starts in restaurant here in PP, wonders through the countryside and ends, for now, on a little dirt road so far off the beaten track that only the unexpected is really expected. Let’s get started, shall we?

Last Friday I accompanied two friends – Molly and her Turkish friend – to the only North Korean restaurant I’ve ever heard of. The North Korean restaurant is exactly what you would expect from a place run by the super secretive country that has effectively created a thick barrier between itself and the modern world. It's a low lying building with thick curtains on the windows and when you enter the door it is literally like falling into another universe.
The room is large and everything is sparkling clean, right down to the women waitresses who look like they must have been chosen based on their identical, childlike innocence and doll-like looks. They are all wearing pretty pink taffeta dresses that seem to be made for dolls as well - they are frilly and fluffy, not trashy or even remotely modern like the other dresses one sees on restaurant ‘hostess’ in this country. At the front of the banquet hall-like room is a stage where these pretty Korean china dolls sing karaoke as if they are performing for the Pope. They never - NEVER - stop smiling. It’s like the Bedford Wives of Asia. And then there is the serious proprietor who walks around looking disgusted with everything the girls are doing. We even saw him shove one of the girls out of the way for doing nothing more than standing inappropriately in his path.
The clientele is mostly Korean men with a few weird white guys - and us, of course. Everyone was overly friendly. We ordered family style and the food was absolutely delicious. Our three waitress (I mean it is necessary for each person at the table to have a waitress after all) hovered around us - literally right over our shoulders - and watched every bite we took. Uncomfortable to say the least! Alice must have felt just like this when she ate with the mad hatter...
After having our fill of wonderful food and close supervision, we departed with fanfare from the waitresses who ran to the door in their pretty little high-heals to wave us goodbye. Rumor has it that they are not allowed to leave the premises of the restaurant and, based on the way they watched our every move and stared at our clothes and hair, I would believe it. It was like an insane world within an already crazy town.

Saturday morning I found out that I would be leaving Sunday afternoon for a trip to the villages to do monitoring for our Gender Awareness program. It was last minute but I was excited. A trip out of the city always does that to me.
Sunday afternoon we traveled out to Kampong Speu (fun to say - it's like spew but drop the w and drag out the eeeuuu). Monday morning was a village meeting with about 20 ladies. I didn't have a translator but I was there to monitor the meeting and see the interaction between our staff and the villagers so it was good. I did cause a ruckus when I got up to give my seat to a woman who arrived late and her child burst in to maniac tears at the sight of me. Oh and I almost got attacked by dog who was determined to protect his owner's shop from the scary white ghost that I am... what can I say? I scare dogs and babies.
Monday night was the night of the cow. We traveled out to a haang baiy or restaurant outside of town. There were little 'gazebos' - you know the Asian type that is made from bamboo and with a roof of palm leaves - that were precariously balanced off the edge of a ravine overlooking a mucky, doubtlessly malaria infest river below. I was pretty sure my giant western self pushed the weight limit for the whole structure and remained on edge until the waiter started delivering Angkor Stout beers in a 5 gallon white bucket. My hosts (co-workers and village staff) then asked me if I liked cow. Now, here was funny question because they had ordered me lok-lak just the day before, which I know is made from sik koh (or literally, meat of cow). I answered that of course I liked cow... Oh the things that are lost in translation! When he asked did I like cow - he meant did I like all of the cow. ALL of the cow.
The first plate was stacked high with tender strips of beef, like fajita meat, and it was yummy yummy. I covered them with the most delicious sauce - basically, from what I can discern, the sauce is actually fresh ground pepper, salt and other 'seasonings' (aka msg) which is served with fresh sliced limes that you squeeze onto the power and mix with sliced peppers. I love it. So plate one of cow is done - and it was great.
Plate 2 of cow was piled high with 'parts' – I could make out chunks of liver, intestines, kidneys and some whitish strips with what looked a bit like honeycomb on one side. My hosts smile approvingly as they shovel a few pieces onto my plate. I’m a good sport (and as my mom pointed out this morning, that's probably why I have worms) so I dug right in. Part number one - tongue. Not bad, quite firm and tasty. Part number two - liver. I've never liked liver (Granny would be so disappointed, I know...) and that apparently hasn't changed from one country to the next. Part number three was the whitish chunk with the honeycomb side - I took a bite and struggled a bit to swallow. Come to find out, I’m not a big fan of cow stomach either. Who knew? Oh but it got better...
My host happily tells me there is one more plate. At this point, all I can think about is how wonderful an ice cream cone or some nice greasy fries would be - but instead I get the main course - cow brains. Actually, a cow brain - the entire thing, brain stem and all - is plopped down in front of us. It had nice garnishes of Chinese parsley and was served on a bed of fresh cucumbers. Regardless of those attempts to 'church' it up - it was a brain - like something off a medical movie or horror flick - and then we all dug in. Watching six people talk and laugh as they tear apart a brain - regardless of its origin - is wrong and weird. They should cut it into chunks before serving it like that! But yes - I ate a bite. Actually, I ate two. It was far better than the stomach and liver and far worse than the yummy strips served at the beginning. It took at least two more Angkor Stouts to wash away the icky feeling but all it all - it was worth the story in the end.

Day two in the villages didn’t give me much to talk about other than meeting a Cambodian village chief who was very excited that I was from Tex-az. The meeting held that day was at a pagoda and I spent most of it watching monks as they did gardening and being stared at by the local orphans who seemed quite happy to sit a few feet from wherever I happened to be and stare without blinking for hours at a time. It was a bit like the Korean place without the pink taffeta.
On our way back through the meandering red dirt roads, two large figures appeared in front of house draped festively in bright yellow and pink silk with a live band playing screeching Cambodian tunes. The figures were like those you see in a parade - larger than life characters depicting a man and a woman. They wobbled uncertainly in the middle of the road as if the two tiny people inside them were attempting to dance without much success. I asked what this was all about and my driver said "Oh yes this happens a lot in Cambodia!" As if that explained exactly how two brightly colored parade figures fit for Mardi Gras arrived in the absolute middle of nowhere, Cambodia. And maybe it does. After all, as the Cheshire Cat said in Alice in Wonderland, "We're all mad here." I think maybe Mr. Carroll must have spent some time in Cambodia...

Between Bland and Boring...

I keep re-reading my blog and coming to the same conclusion. It’s boring. More realistically – I keep reading the blogs of other wayfaring strangers and finding myself coveting their dry sense of humor, their witty tales of traveling woes, and their endless stream of laughable observations. And then I come to the conclusion that my blog needs to be logged somewhere between the likenesses of reading a case study for a management course and trudging through the instruction book that came with your old VCR. I’m mildly intimidated while you must be irrevocably challenged to just get through the next entry…

So today I offer you an excuse for my current, bland literary prose. I’m sending you the website for CEDAC. If you can drag yourself away from that VCR manual for a few seconds, click on any of the articles on this page and read a few riveting sentences.

http://www.cedac.org.kh/events.asp

These are the articles I help to edit all day, every day (in between my work on equally riveting annual reports and activity summaries of course). Now tell me what is more unfortunate – that my days are filled with these tasks or that I love every second of it. See to me, this is riveting reading material. These are amazing articles. This is the real deal. So I’m sorry – If you are looking for satirical humor and dazzling accounts of new and unique places, check out these blogs:

http://www.noinkontrees.blogspot.com/
http://paddleyourcanoe.blogspot.com/

But I hope you’ll stick it out with me as well – there is much to learn and see and I’ve never backed down from telling a story.

In other news – my road is still flooded (or as Molly would say, my moat is still full), my amoebas have been defeated (or are at least at bay), and I’m back to my beer drinking, long distant running, spicy food eating self. I hear the weather is turning cooler back home – I’m waiting for the ‘cool’ months here (though I think they are lot like the tooth fairy – more fairytale than truth.).

Also – for those of you with a gmail, aol, or yahoo account – you can click on the “Follow” link on the left side of this page and you can sign up to receive updates when I post a new blog (therefore ending that constant worry that you have missed yet another “can’t take my eyes off my computer” blog entry from yours truly…).

Love from the Road

The View From My Window on the World

Development is a funny thing in a third world country. It is almost like watching a three legged dog run a race. It’s moving forward, certainly, but not smoothly and not without difficulty.

I work and live in a developing area of a developing country. It’s out beyond the cities booming epicenter. It’s actually past any of the ripples of energy created by that epicenter. I jokingly call it Nevernever Land because no one ever comes out here. There is no reason to come out here. It has it’s definite bright points – it’s quiet here and very VERY cheap. Most of my meals are a dollar or less. And we all know I’m a big fan of cheap food and easy living.

The picture you see is looking out the gate of my office complex. The office itself is very new. Downstairs there are several offices areas, a lounge/TV room which is usually filled with the guards that CEDAC hires 24 hours a day. They are actually just young men from the rural areas that make sure no one steals anything and the gate is locked and unlocked at the appropriate times. Upstairs there are numerous meeting rooms and several cavernous rooms that are make shift living quarters for the guards and for yours truly. I got very special treatment and have a bed instead of a lawn chair, a bathroom in my room, and a fridge and gas stove. It’s an ‘industrial’ room but it’s functional, it’s clean and it is, for the next year, home.

Back to that picture. As you can see, the road is a dirt road which is currently under water – thank you monsoon rains! But when it isn’t covered in disgusting garbage and waste water, it’s actually kind of pleasant. It separates us from the main road by just enough to keep the noise and traffic down. The main road is part of that three-legged dog I was telling you about. It has all the keys of a developing area – nice new apartments, two universities (in very nice buildings), a few open-air restaurants, and a scattering of minimarts which I use as grocery stores for lack of a better option (I’m once again thankful for my love of Ramen and Coke and for Laughing Cow cheese being available almost everywhere in the world – that I have been). But this bustling street of green houses and trucks and mopeds has a darker side. At night, ‘karaoke’ places emerge from the shadowed and shuttered gates. Two rows of young women, dressed in something like prom dresses and wearing too much makeup to cover up their obvious disdain for life, sit in uncomfortable plastic chairs and watch as the Lexus and Hummer driving clientele pull up and get out. I don’t get out much at night as it is – just easier to stay home after dark – but when I do take my bike to the local minimarts for a last-minute meal, I inevitably carry a bit of guilt back home with me. After all, the only difference between them and me is that I was blessed enough to be born somewhere else.

Development doesn’t apply to all areas of life – yes, buildings are being raised, jobs are opening up, electricity is almost constant, running water is prevalent – but developing morality, increasing education, and promoting opportunity for all genders and races seems to lag. And that missing leg of development inevitably slows down the entire race. The sex trade is not a pretty part of the development picture – but is a part of the picture and one which must be acknowledged, discussed, and changed – just as poverty, famine, disease and malnutrition are all being changed - if we ever hope to move things forward for the better. After all, the benefits of development should reach beyond the upper classes, the men, and the predominant ethnic groups or it's really no development at all.

Answering the Important Questions

I haven’t been completely honest about the writer’s block. It isn’t that I haven’t been writing it’s just that I haven’t been writing the kinds of things I feel you would want to read. Given my history for vibrantly colored entries (long and drawn out as they tend to be), I figured that you probably didn’t want to read about my day-to-day life as a volunteer struggling to stay within her budget, fighting traffic and heat, and living – for the most part – in a one or two block radius of my home/work. It isn’t exciting – not like a road trip through New Zealand – or physically challenging – like a hike up the second highest mountain in Indonesia – or as aesthetically appealing – as say the elephant filled jungles or sand washed beaches of Thailand. My life – and the subsequent text describing it – are much more … normal. It’s like the lives you live – well, if you added the amoebic dysentery, the flooded streets, the kids digging through the trash and the red light district at the end of my block… So yes, there are differences but they may not be as enjoyable to read as the account of my last journey. However, I owe it to myself to share the things I learn and the impressions made on me here in this land of dreams and disappointments. Because this is a real world, folks – not a postcard or a rumor or Discovery special on TV. This is Cambodia! And trust me, some days it’s much too real for comfort.

So in that spirit, my next two entries are going to be rather explanatory in form. The first one is to answer the question that has begun to define my life: What exactly is it you do in Cambodia? And the second is to give you a glimpse of my world – to set the stage, so to speak – from which this blog will find it’s voice. Join me or delete me. The journey is just getting started – and we all have so much to learn…


The beginning of typical conversation held in my presence for the last 9 months:

Stranger/family member/ close friend/ new acquaintance/ grocery store clerks:
“Soooo – Cambodia, huh? And what exactly are you going to do/do you do in Cambodia???” (Almost always accompanied by the suspicious eyebrow raise and/or a slightly skeptical tone of voice implying that I may answer “Drugs or other distasteful behavior.”)

Me: “Er, well, I’m going to volunteer through an organization called VIA for an organization called CEDAC that is basically the largest NGOs (that means Non Governmental Organization) in Cambodia. They concentrate on things like rural development, cooperative development, and continued educational opportunities for rural youth and farmers…” At which point the other person has adopted the same blank stare I get when someone starts talking about mortgages or fixed interest rates.

So let’s see if I can’t do a little bit better job of elaborating on what I do – and why I do it – in the written word instead of the very ineffective oral communication.

There are people in this world who were born wanting to be something – something definite: a doctor, a mother, a really good football player. And then there are those of us who were born wanting something – something undefined, undiscovered and inexpressible until that moment when we find it. Some of us find it in a church, meet it dancing at a bar, find it in a classroom or a hospital or in a field or on a postcard. But for me, the something is the search. And secondary to the search is the only other thing that I really truly get – Agriculture.

After months of traveling I finally made a decision: I could do them both. I could use agriculture to fund and finance the search. I could take my wanderlust to the fields of the world. And so I began a new kind of search – the search for a job overseas focusing on agricultural development. I mean - I was raised on a farm in the Bread Basket of America! I went to a premier agricultural college – Texas A&M University – where I was involved with the amazing array of agricultural developments and programs available there! I studied agricultural development in Armenia! I worked for Kraft Foods and Cargill and BEI Hawaii! I was sure with this endless wealth of knowledge (haha), programs overseas would be jumping at the chance to hire me and pay me share all those experiences with them and their farmers! Oh – assumptions – they do make a fool of the unprepared.

So after months of searching, after sending out 50 plus polished-til-they-shone resumes and cover letters, after countless “Thank you but we have no positions available” and “We are looking for someone with more experience” emails, I came to the rather disturbing conclusion that a ‘job’ overseas might be out of my league. Back to the drawing board – and the drawing board said, “Volunteer.” That little realization led to interviews with a couple of volunteer organizations but only one had everything I was looking for: good insurance, a long standing presence in Southeast Asia, and an agricultural position available which did not require me to teach English – or at least not much English. I was sold and as luck would have it, VIA (Volunteers in Asia) accepted me. But that was just the beginning…

The beginning of journey that led me, somewhat surprisingly, to Cambodia (which was not my first, second or even third choice of countries – but God has a funny since of humor. My suggestion – be more specific in your prayers. Don’t say I’ll go anywhere – because you very well might.). On a journey that has introduced me to some of the most amazingly unique, oddly loveable fellow volunteers. A journey that has taught me more than I can ever hope to teach, shown me more than I could ever hope to share, and given me more than I can ever hope to return.

But it hasn’t given me a really good answer for what ‘exactly’ I do here. It gets all lost in translation when I describe it to people. It sounds boring, it sounds tedious, it sounds normal. You see, I work in an office with 8 to 10 other CEDAC staff members.(CEDAC, by the way, stands for the Cambodian Center for Study and Development in Agriculture – except the words are actually French so that’s a loose translation…) My job is basically the English Resource Coordinator – a fancy term for editing documents, reports, writing summaries, preparing grants and proposals. But it has it’s perks! A - I’ve actually very good at it. B – The material is great reading for an ag nerd like me. C- It requires that I travel to the field to monitor the programs I am writing about. So on a good day – a great day if I’m lucky – I spend time zooming down dirt roads surrounded by emerald green rice patties visiting with farmers - via a translator, of course – and soaking up all the agricultural knowledge I can get my hands on. And on Saturdays I teach a class from 8:30 – 11:30 to a room full of anxious and excited staff members who will probably end up saying things like “ya’ll” and “fixin’ to” and knowing words that they’ll never actually use like “cotton gin” and “wide receiver.”

So that is what I do. I spend my days enjoying the best of many of my worlds: traveling, writing, and agriculture. And I must admit, I smile more hours per day than I ever have at a job. Of course it’s early – maybe the boring part sets in later. But somehow I doubt it. There are always little things coming up to make a normal day into something extraordinary – a monsoon rain that floods my road, a new Ethiopian volunteer to talk to, a dinner date with the other VIA volunteers here in Phnom Penh (there are 4 of us in PP and 1 volunteer in the rural area). So while some of the things I do seem normal – the way I do them rarely does!

Now you can wipe the blank stare from you face and get back to doing what you normally do. I think I’ll head upstairs to my ‘home’ (The apartment I live in is above my office. Talk about taking your work home with you!) and feed the amoebas before I head off to bed. Hope all is well wherever you call home. Miss you all!

Love from the Road…