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…