In Bangkok last Wednesday violent protestors closed down the Suvarnabhumi International Airport, continuing the unrest that has been plaguing the country since August. The gunfire and grenades being thrown meant that all travelers were trapped inside the airport, and my sister was not allowed to board her flight from Minneapolis to Bangkok for her visit to Cambodia. I was completely unaware of the conflict and found out about the situation like a punch in the stomach from another volunteer at ANDC nonchalantly asking how my sister and I were planning on getting out of Bangkok since there were no outgoing flights. While I waited to get in touch with my family I wildly imagined my little sister landing in Bangkok unaware of the volatile situation, meeting her there and somehow arranging travel plans to make it out of the city and into Cambodia by bus, wondering if I would be able to get into Bangkok to get her—fearing the worst.
My dad assured me that she was safe at home, saying that the protests were worse than the military coup in Thailand in 2006, and that the most seasoned travelers would avoid the region. This brought a mixed bag of feelings: a big dose of gratitude for the amazing timing and transfer of information that kept my sister and me safe and overwhelming disappointment and sadness at the opportunity lost, one that we had been planning for since before I moved to Phnom Penh. More than anything I regretted what my sister would be missing, the chance to experience this place through the eyes that I could give her and the doors that I could open through my work. I felt suddenly very alone and small in the big world, full of unpredictable and unfriendly people—and my vulnerability was right in front of me again because of the close call and unexpected snatching away of something so good.
My immediate course of action was to begin re-routing my flight home to keep out of Bangkok. My dad worked his stunning airline magic and within a day I received an email with a new itinerary that has me bussing to Saigon on December 11 and flying out of that airport to be home on December 13. This means the adventure of a land border crossing with all of my moving-back baggage—but also that I was looking at just two weeks left of living on a see-saw at the edge. I jumped right to making a list of everything I had left to do and see, wrap up and say good-bye to.
I started on Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, my first big family holiday alone. I felt down and homesick on and off during the day, missing my sister and picturing cold weather and football games, but perked myself up by thinking, “How many Thanksgivings am I going to have in a foreign country as a kid? Sweating away and celebrating with dragon fruit shakes!” That always felt like a pat on the back and kick to think positively. My friend Charlotte scored free tickets to the dress rehearsal of the much-hyped first Khmer rock opera Where Elephants Weep and gave me one, and we met two of her Khmer girlfriends at the best performance venue in the country, the Chenla Theatre. Even the hoity New York theatre crowd had been batting around rumors about the show, so we made sure to be properly expectant. Dara, one of Charlotte’s friends, elbowed her way to front of the seats in the warehouse-like theatre, smiled winningly at the usher, and talked up her job as a TV show host until we were comfortably staring up at the stage from center-front row.
The rock opera ended up being two hours long without intermission, and the mixed tale of two young men who had been orphaned Khmer Rouge child soldiers, migrants to the US, and who were trying to find peace with their past by entering three-month Buddhist monkhoods—and a “love at first sight, ‘till destiny do us part” saga of a Khmer popstar and one of the friends, a Sony producer. I found the storyline implausible and the dialogue impossibly soap-operatic—although I realize those traits play directly into classic and popular Khmer entertainment. Somehow I couldn’t take seriously the juxtaposition of rapping gate guards and soaring poetic laments of trees and the eternal soul. However, I had huge appreciation for the social topics the show’s writer bravely touched on, from begging migrant children to women’s oppression to the lagging morality of the booming nouveau riche, especially in light of many Khmer people being unwilling to whisper a bad word about the Cambodian People’s Party government.
The American half of the cast is staying at the hotel where I do my nightly workouts and I have shared the gym with them on multiple occasions, so I had a good time seeing my casual sweat-buddies performing the scenes I had heard them discussing or practicing for. The music was unlike anything I had anticipated, with a live traditional orchestra on one side and a modern band on the other, and ghostlike arias running into electric guitar solos. Above all I love seeing further emergence of the arts in Cambodia, with big local excitement paired with international media attention and hence support.
Charlotte and I rushed to a motodups after the show to make our “traditional Thanksgiving dinner” booking at a café near my apartment. We shared a bottle of wine and plates of turkey, spinach, potatoes, corn, and stuffing filled with apples and giant almond slivers, and shared memories of our differences in Thanksgivings growing up—hers with seafood in Louisiana and mine on a Minnesotan farm. Cream cheese and saltine crackers were on the table when we arrived, which we yelped in surprise at and quickly dove into, as they are treats that neither of us have had for months. We were most looking forward to the pumpkin pie after our dinner, which was unfortunately served with chocolate ice cream and tasted a bit like feet. But after our initial disappointment, it only gave us another hearty laugh and the oft-uttered, “Oh, Cambodia…”
Charlotte and I decided to pair up for the next few days to tackle a few items on my “tourism list,” since she is moving into the apartment with me on Monday night to continue living in Phnom Penh for the next eight months and up for culture-soaking after a few months here already. We headed to the National Museum on Friday morning, accidently walking into the “restoration area” straight away and getting blasted by plaster dust flying every which-way. However, we soon lost our original apprehensive attitudes about the endeavor and stared open-mouthed at the preserved 7th and 8th century relics on display. A huge reclining Buddha, the third largest in the world, lay in front of us after serving as an aqueduct and temple for a thousand years. We saw ancient costumes from performers for the royal family, Khmer inscriptions from favorite queens of the Angkor kings, and weapons from the Khmer empire’s age of glory. As we were leaving we saw the requisite peculiar sight, a man spraying each statue with a bottle of repugnantly strong cologne. We were pretty offended by the destruction of the artifacts, so Charlotte approached the man and asked him what he was doing. He looked guiltily from side to side and then pointedly ignored Charlotte until she gave him a disgusted look and walked away. We asked our Khmer friends what he could have been doing—they couldn’t think of a possible reason and just said, “Jerk.” Well put.
The next morning we dug utensil-less into a customary Indian-Bangladeshi breakfast with a shared bowl of yellow daal, big chapattis, and a plate of fried egg to fuel up for our planned day trip out to Uodong Mountain in Kandal province. We hailed a surprised motodup for the 45 minute ride from Phnom Penh to the foot of the mountain, and headed north out of the city squeezed with three on the bike and our helmets clanging together. The discomfort of the ride added to the adrenaline of the trip, since we were traveling as locals would on the provincial country roads, tipping precariously in the gusty winds from the fields and getting showered in dust from monstrous trucks roaring past. We arrived at Uodong to be bombarded by kids shoving trinkets in our faces for purchase and facing the long, winding steps up to the top filled with beggars and “donation bowls.” Taking a few pictures, Charlotte took charge and headed straight in, quickly shaking off the two preteen English-speaking boys who presumed without asking that they were our guides, to be paid upon descent.
We removed our shoes at the holy top of the mountain and halted simultaneously: there was the sound of tree leaves rustling in the country breeze. Listening to the sounds of the local people praying at the altar led by a monk, the huge spire of the main temple stretching into the marvelously clean sky, we looked out over the schools and kites and tilled land rippling out before us. Walking around the monuments that became progressively older as we made our way along the range, we became more and more awestruck by the cultural history and architecture preserved in the stone—seeing the three-headed elephants that represent the Hindu gods who created the world, keep the world, and will end the world, and the nagas beneath bodhisattvas’ feet—grasping what these images and symbols mean to the people and country we now know. I think that is what made all the difference for us on the mountain, feeling connected to the individuals and the place that these awe-inspiring testaments stem from, because it means we can appreciate their meaning and power and importance. Our trek across Uodong ended underneath the beams of a single construction worker laboring calmly away at a structure to house a mammoth golden meditating Buddha, with local women holding incense between their palms held at their foreheads, doing the reverential three bows at the Buddha’s feet. On the way down we had coconuts to get ready for the long, cramping ride back into the city, and the old woman who sold them to us came over once we were finished to whack the fruit in two with a huge knife and show us how to use a sharp piece of the skin to scrape out pieces of the sweet white meat inside.
That night I met my friend Jennifer for her last night in Phnom Penh, and we fittingly went to the last-ever show of the Sovanna Phum Arts Association— that night was a selection from the Ramayana story using the whole company of local professionals in Khmer dance, music, shadow puppetry, and narration. Hanuman the monkey king leapt and cart wheeled across the stage to the booming of drums, sea queens waved their scarves to the crying strings, and an army of monkey minions scratched and did aerials hilariously to the unmistakable Khmer xylophone. The shadow puppets jerked and weaved dramatically as the narrator’s voice told the story by intonation alone. The audience ooh’d and ahh’d properly at each new stunning costume debuted, with towering headdresses and green, mustachioed masks. My favorite part was after the show, when an audience member picked up a Khmer guitar from the orchestra and played so well that he pretty soon had everyone left in the theatre whooping and stomping with their neighbor to his song.
On Sunday I sucked in my energy (and courage!) and jumped on a truck to the river with a group of hardened, seasoned athletes to run my first HASH with the Phnom Penh House Harriers. I happened to pick an extraordinary day for my first and, sadly, only HASH in Cambodia, as it was the Phnom Penh Harriers’ 888th run. They had specially reserved a boat out into the provinces and instead of a live run (meaning determining the course while doing the run) had marked a course through the countryside exactly 8.88 kilometers long. Spray paint can and bugle horn in hand, everyone grabbed a bottle of water and headed off into the dirt along the river banks, splashing through puddles, slurping through manure-filled mud, and doing knee-to-chest- jumps across cavities in the land. Pretty soon we were running through banana plantations and just-planted fields, ducking under low palm branches and remembering to walk past every cow (in order to keep them calm and not get charged at), listening for the “On-on” call and blow of the bugle horn. Every village we ran through had the kids laughing and pointing at us, yelping “Hello! Hello!” and the old women chuckling at the spectacle. We stopped at a holding point to search for the course path by a temple and made friends with the monks there—the abbot pulled out his Nokia cell phone and had a novice take a picture of him with the group.
The regular HASH-ers told me that the pace was a quick one because everyone was so excited to be a part of such a significant run, and that pushing it out with a grin in sprints through fields of burning trees and treacherous pits covered by straw was the best way to prove myself as a “virgie.” I made friends with an American girl teaching at the University of Cambodia who matched my pace, and we shut down our brains and gave our last burst of big speed through the final 1.4k to reach the finish with the “fast” group. No winners and losers on the Phnom Penh HASH, just “fast” and “slow” (and where you really don’t want to be unless you threw up—“ran-then-walked.”) I was flying high as a bird on cloud nine; with the veteran runners cracking open a beer for me and slapping me on the back as the only first-time runner on the course. They had decided to have a celebratory barbeque on the river banks, with Khmer baguette and cabbage and bratwurst on wood fire grills. There was a ceremony once night fell, involving all the HASH-ers in a circle singing the songs that have developed since the group’s birth in the 1920’s, the presentation of official “names” to standout repeat runners, beer-drinking from a silver cup as punishment for offenses like short-cutting, and the passing of the ritual cucumber. I happily networked and chatted the whole boat ride back upriver, meeting a whole new world of a community.
This community and the new vision I had of the countryside were the best things I found on the HASH, besides the ultimate satisfaction of meeting a big goal without a glitch or letdown. Once you prove yourself in this running community, they open big arms and stories and doors. And slogging through the weeds, squinting between trees in dark, tropical groves, pounding along well-worn villages paths opens a small window of reality that I would have otherwise missed. I fell asleep dreaming happily of my next escapade before goodbye.
i just read your last 3 entries. uhh you are amazing. i want to do something like this so bad. keep it up baby. i cant wait to see you!
Posted by: Aurora | December 05, 2008 at 12:45 PM