OPERATIONAL DISTRICT: TAKEO
HEALTH CENTERS: NONE. CATCHUP DAY
Wednesdays is our easy day. T and W were going to go do the only field site work for the day, while D and I would focus on doing the data entry and logistics side of things. We check out early in the morning and bid farewell to T & W, and D and I go find some local breakfast on the side of the road. Beef and rice is for breakfast today, with chili of course.
There is an acceptance for 'the way things are' here. There are things that are out of their control, and so instead of complain about them, the best way to approach them is through acceptance. During breakfast, a farmer stops in and makes small talk with the owner of the breakfast stall. D translates for me, smiling at what the man is saying: "I really wish it would stop raining. It's hard for the crops. I really want it to stop raining, but what can I do? I can't control the rains. I just have to submit to it." And so, there you go. Acceptance of things we cannot control. Almost a virtuous saying, found on the roadside in Cambodia.
D and I find a small cafe to sit at. I'm currently writing while in this cafe, having sat here now for over 6 hours doing our data entry and writing my blogs. I love sitting with him and chatting. There is often silence for long periods of time but when conversations pick up, they're always insightful. I feel I can get the most out of Cambodia because of his understanding of its people and his dedication to the community. We stop in and order some Banh Cheo, which is the Cambodian version of Vietnamese Ban Xeo, a sort of egg, bean sprouts, and meat dish that's wrapped among lettuce and fresh basil and veg. It's delicious and fresh, just how I remember the Vietnamese variety (except that the Cambodian one here does not have rice paper you wrap it in). The cafe faces the road directly and so it's also perfect for watching people pass by, and stop in to the cafe.
The owner is a humble man. He sees us conversing in English and so approaches D for help. Apparently, his cell phone is stuck in English mode and he cannot read it, and so wants it in Khmer. I help him with this matter, and he is gracious. He occasionally stops by during the day to check in on us, or just to overlook our shoulders to see what we're doing. Data entry, data entry, data entry...
Also while we are sat here, we have been approached by a man selling honeycombs. He is a farmer, carrying around a small basket of them and trying to sell them to the customers in the nearby restaurant. D asks me if I want to try it and I take a bite. Now, usually I'm not too picky with food, but I think psychologically this one tripped me up a bit. The honeycombs still had small bee larvae in it that were moving, which was an indication that it was fresh, but the thought of killing small bees for a honeycomb really freaked me out. Plus, the texture was good of the honeycomb but the larvae squirted their juices as I bit into them. I tried to stifle my facial expression, and chased it with some of the tea nearby. So, true to my motto, "try everything once, and give it an honest try", I did it, but I wasn't so hot about the flavor. Those poor bees. The honeycomb itself was very sweet though. It's probably the most organic I've ever had my honey.
There has also been a lady who opened up a small wooden stall selling fresh grilled corn on the roadside. When D goes and approaches the stall, the owner is not there. He proceeds to braise the corn himself and cook it on the open fire. When the lady returns, she helps him out. There's no criticism of overtaking her stall. She just slowly takes over and continues cooking the corn. D buys two, one for each of us.
The corn takes the honeycomb flavor out of my mouth. The kernels of the corn are like I've never tasted before. Because the corn is slow-grilled over a fire, the kernels retain a hard-ish consistency and are actually chewy, not soft. This allows the kernels to retain the juice that the corn is braised in, making for a very succulent bite into the stalk. Also, the corn retains part of the stem, maybe about 10 centimeters, so as to be able to have a grip while eating it. Completely hassle free. Each bite I take I'm enjoying it, and thinking about how much less there is to be had. Business is good today for her, she sells off her entire supply. Out in the back of the restaurant, the waiter who was serving us is cutting out banana leaves as plates to serve the Banh Cheo. D occasionally walks around and talks to the locals. The lady who sells corn is also drying her rice, and so he goes and looks at the rice, takes a handful, and smells it. He shows it to me to smell. Sun dried rice smells like fresh grain.
As said before, D has a passion for the environment and the flora of Cambodia. When he describes a place, he'll talk about the natural beauty of the place: the beaches are surrounded by forest, the land is surrounded by mountains, the mountains are made of this-and-that rock. He's just like a kid with these things, always observing, touching, tasting, and smelling his environment. Just like a scientist. Just like a conservationist. A Cambodian in-touch with his country. "My country." He can describe the provinces and how they differ by landscape, and he will occasionally point out different tree species while we are hanging out. When at the cafe, on one of his random get-up-and-walk trips, he asks me if I know what a tamarind is. I say yes, and he says to go over because he found a tamarind tree. He shows me the leaves and the fruit. He tells me that the leaves are often used in cooking because they are very acidic. Accordingly, he rips it off and then bites into it. I do the same, and he is right. There's a sourness but richness in the flavor. I suck on the leaf and spit it out. So, just within 10 meters from me I've managed to try honeycomb, corn, and tamarind leaf.
D converses at ease when asked about various topics. I ask him about bowing in Cambodian culture since I've seen W do it a couple of times for the past few days. He says bowing is "very important in my culture" then proceeds to show me the various ways of bowing.
The hands don't change in bowing. They stay in a loose prayer position with fingers not held tightly but not too loose; a comfortable pressing together of palms. In fact, the important part is about the location you put your prayer hands and the degree of bowing. For friends, and among those older than you, you will put the thumbs to your heart. The bow doesn't happen at the neck, but rather at the waist. So, with your face forward you bend at the waist, hands at heart, and stay looking at the person you're bowing too. A smile is always nice, and, in fact, sometimes service industry staff will greet customers in this way as well.
From there, you can think of it as going up rankings. For parents, your thumbs are now near your chin, almost cradling it, and your head kinks down. For the King, your thumbs are near your nostrils, head also bowing down. And who is mightier than the King? Buddha, for whom you put your thumbs anywhere between your third eye to the top of your forehead, head bowed in submission for your faith. "I'm not sure how the Thai or the Japanese do it, maybe it's more complicated, but that's how we do it here."
The cafe sees occasional foot traffic throughout the day. People stopping in to pick up food and have Banh Cheo, and other people stopping by the streetfront to buy corn from the auntie. The man whose phone we had to translate to Khmer will occasionally stop by and chat with D, who entertains this converesation as if speaking to a long term friend. He smiles at me and does a lot of nodding, and I return this gesture. The breeze occasionaly blows by to cool us down. We order a Cambodian Coffee from him (sweeter than I expected, but the flavor of the coffee was great). The lady selling corn occasionally goes back into her house to do something leaving her corn on the grill. Some people stop by and braise their own corn, then wait to pay her. Although we've spent about 5 hours here, it seems like the time just flies by watching the people. A man in an ox-drawn cart drives by on the road. Following him is a family of four on a scooter, and then a 11 year old on a scooter. Honda Dream, 2009.
D talks highly of Operation Asha, the NGO from which we work. He is moved by the work these people do. While we are sat there, another NGO person arrives in a car and in her elephant pants and sits with two locals, ordering Banh Cheo just like us. Immediately D knows that it's NGO workers, since usually you don't get tourists in this part of town. Plus, I mean the elephant pants were really a dead giveaway. So was the accent, she sounded American. I don't know what it is about American English in the developing setting, but it sounds awkward. The fully formed sentences, the nasal voice, the overuse of articles and verb conjugations, it's just clunky in this setting. And laborious to listen to. In Cambodia I've been using a version of special English. It's almost a bit like Singlish. I've learned to cut down the words I don't need and to just highlight the verbs and nouns. Tenses also go out the door. D tells me that in Cambodia you don't conjugate the verbs, and so when he first learned French he had trouble figuring out what conjugation even was. If I'm thinking logically (watch out now..) here, it goes like this:
For non native speakers of English, they likely learn the language first by translating via their mother tongue, then advance on to more complicated sentence compositions. As such, when I speak English then, I try to think of it in the Khmer perspective. No verb tenses, preface the sentence with the time period, focus on the important words. This isn't an attempt to 'dumb down' my English because I do not think they're capable of understanding, but rather to be understood. I can't say they suck at English in good conscience if my Khmer sucks ass. So, I use "special English" here. "Today go where?" and "D, I ask you one thing"
But back to Operation Asha. D tells me that it's quite common to see "foreign NGO" workers in rural areas since that's where the funding comes from. Most of the aid comes from the U.S., Australia, and importantly Europe. Much of the health infrastructure here is done in collaboration with them. I then ask about China, and he says rarely from China. "No" he says, not with a bright, round "O" vowel like U.S. or Canadians would say it, but pursed lips and a dark sound in the back of the throat, accompanied with a shake of his head. Then a smile. "China hardly gives us money for health, we have to depend on the West."
In the development context, China is the main supporter of economic growth in many developing countries, part of the "South-South investment" course of things. Remember the buildings when I first landed in Cambodia, and traveled out the airport? Chinese was one of the main languages on them. Chinese support business, and Chinese do business well. Most of the economic growth opportunities are in Chinese hands, due to their recent success story of a rising economy. D says that after English, the most likely learned foreign language would be Chinese, followed by French. "Now, they are verrrrry powerful, whoaa. Many people want to do business with China, and so some kids will learn Chinese in schools, and take extra classes." I mean, that's not such a far cry from the Pol Pot regime, right? Economic investment, except this time not for genocide?
It's a touchy subject, but D talks very generally about it to me. The Wiki page is likely to give you more detailed history. I'll just type it as an excerpt in brief from his perspective:
"Pol Pot was the ultra nationalist. Maybe too nationalistic. He pushed for communism and really wanted Cambodia to succeed, so his way of doing this was to make everyone equal. To do that, he had to make urban people realize how hard the struggle for farmers were." I interrupt him to ask about how they teach about him in school. "Ohhhh (dark O, not bright, shaking head), they teach us to hate him. Too many people dead under him. Even now, you ask the older generation and they do not want to mention his name. They don't want to think about these issues, they want to forget. Back then, it was look out for yourself and your family to survive. Do what you have to do individually to live. It was life and death. The young now will criticize the old generation for being selfish and not living communally, but that's exactly what brought fear into their lives, communal living. Some young people have forgot our history."
"For those lucky enough to move abroad they could escape, but when I was in France many people said they never want to go back to Cambodia. They cannot face what has happened there. It's ironic that Pol Pot could stand for 'Political Potential.' He had the right idea but none of right actions. As soon as his regime fell, the April 17ers (the day the Khmer Rouge started, and a name given to the people who were forced to the countryside) all rushed back to the cities -- the 'capitalists' as we called them at the time."
"But from it came some good things too. One of Cambodia's millionaires was one of the refugees and he wanted to escape to Thailand. When the Thai government rejected him then he went to Australia. He's now the owner of Cambodian Railways and operates Siemens and Canon in our country." He laughs hesitantly throughout his recount of Pol Pot, not sure if it's to lighten the subject or if he also has exhausted talking about this subject. Either way, I don't push it, because it's in the past. He talks now of progress, of change for his country and the hope he has for them. It's what inspires his work now.
We pick up two other collectors, Z and K. So now, we have five: D, T, W, Z, and K. The team is officially complete. Z's name is actually incredibly Chinese, but she looks like the 'typical Cambodian,' with very few East Asian features. She's short in stature and is the only girl among a group of guys. Soft spoken, but also exudes that classic Cambodian nonchalance that I'm now beginning to slowly soak in. K also shows that kind of relaxedness. His voice isn't very loud, and he's not very outspoken, but again his gestures show respect and kindness. There's a calmness to his personality that puts me at ease. He introduces himself to me in English, "Hi, my name is K." Smiles are exchanged. He looks more Japanese or East Asian, with a sharp nose protruding from his face, and a few white hairs tucked among a full bed of black. Both are recent graduates from university in psychology, and both were classmates. "Undergraduate wasn't too hard. Just a lot of studying." -- maybe that explains the white hairs.
Dinner is special as we rest in Kampong Trach for the night. The owner cooks us his duck specialty in lemongrass and everyone is sat together at the round table eating it with rice, chicken soup, and another Cambodian duck dish. A, the driver, also joins us and we eat together as one family, one team. The rain sets in and hits the metal roofing above our heads. D and T shout to talk to each other, and A's loud voice naturally carries at a decible higher than the rain. It's the third night of rain in a row, and we're lucky that we've reached our destination before it all started.
