Change of Location

Friday morning and we were up early finishing our packing. We will not return to Green Pasture Guest house so have to take everything with us. It takes two tuk tuks completely filled just to carry our luggage the short distance to the bus. We walk.

The bus ride is normally about three hours – ours was four due to mis-communication. It was good that much of the time on the bus was good fellowship time for the dorm students and our team. I had heard that there was to be a “talent show” but was envisioning something different from what took place. Each person was called up to the front of the bus to exhibit a talent of some sort – everything from doing a monkey impersonation to braiding hair. There was a lot of laughing and silliness. There was also a lot of singing with guitars and I am starting to identify the really good voices among them. It is very evident that the students just enjoy being together under any conditions. I had a good conversation with my seat mate, Theis, about life in Cambodia.

After a looooong lunch (what small restaurant is ready to serve 41 people, spur of the moment?) we pulled into Rock Royal Hotel at the seaside resort town of Kep (www.rockroyalresort.com). Not long after checking in, rain clouds started rolling in with a brisk wind. We watched a remarkable storm from our second story window as the power outages began. The hotel lost power for about half an hour, during which several people were trapped in the small elevator. The AC was also out during that time. The rooms here are without power unless the room key is in a power slot by the door, so they are warm any time you enter them and are slow to cool down.

Another interesting show out our window was the rounding up of cattle. Four skinny cows were grazing in the yard outside the hotel and after the rain a man came to take them elsewhere. Some of them were tethered and kicked up their heels a bit when untied but all eventually followed the man out a gate and up the street, seemingly of their own accord.

The evening meeting was held with some singing and a message by one of our team members. Then we all packed up and went by bus to another part of Kep where the Kimmley seafood restaurant was serving dinner. They have an open front to the ocean and the noise of the waves on top of the chatter of many voices gave me a very real listening challenge. To isolate an individual voice was hard. Things quieted down a good bit when everyone started eating. It was still raining and blowing outside so we had another power outage. Surprisingly the restaurant had a generator. I would hope they had a way to keep all their seafood cold… I ate conservatively this time, a mango shake and rice with vegetables. Julie had fried fish in coconut milk which came looking much different from what she expected and a bit scary.

I did have one food adventure today though. I have heard about the fruit durian, which many Cambodians like, and most foreigners say is unbelievably stinky. It is prohibited on buses and in some businesses because of the smell. I have often wondered about it, being unable to detect the bad smell myself. The students bought one at our lunch stop and offered me a taste. It was good in a way unlike any other fruit I have had. It didn’t smell particularly bad at all. I think it’s reputation needs to change.  Come to find out there is a whole blog about Durian, the King of Fruits with everything you might want to know about it, including What Americans Say about Durian . Hilarious.

Julie and I had a restful night, lulled to sleep by the rain, and the wind which makes a constant, rushing whistle on our corner of the building, much like a Wisconsn winter blizzard.

In the U.S. the streets are pretty quiet early on Sunday mornings.  In Cambodia there is very little difference between Sunday and any other day.  As we rode in tuk tuks back to the Asia Hope compound for church the difference I noticed was not in the traffic but in the temperature – it finally rained last night and cooled things down a little, settled a bit of the dust.  This is normally their rainy season but this year there has been no rain for several months.  One house parent told us that his wife and the kids carry water out to their garden every day in the evening to keep the plants alive.  And I heard the rain last night as I was trying to sleep my headache away – there is a metal roof right outside my window and the rain was heavy and noisy, but welcome.  

We had a good time at church with the children from all five homes.  As usual we were the guests of honor with children holding our hands and sitting with us, fanning us, and being attentive in general.  We spent an hour and a half after church visiting one family house, went to lunch at the White Elephant (beautiful place!), and then returned to spend time with the other house. (Our team is sponsoring or closely connected to two of the five homes.) We then returned to our guest house and are having some “down time” until this evening when I get to go to the airport to welcome my daughter!

On our tuk tuk rides, which take nearly an hour when we go to Asia Hope) we talk about many things we see along the way.  There are Buddhist temples.  There are Muslim mosques and neighborhoods where women wear Muslim dress.  There is much construction.  There are many strange sights.  Today the talk was about parasites and worms of various kinds.  Yesterday at the medical clinic we had medicine for parasites that was given to several patients.  The physician’s assistant on our team suggested that we might want to take some of this medicine back home with us to treat ourselves after getting back.  I have not done that before but it sounded like a good idea after hearing some of the stories he told us.  And it is not at all hard to imagine getting parasites with the lack of sanitation that is evident everywhere.

Later: Julia arrived early at the airport and in no time at all we were heading back to the guest house. It was good for her first glimpse of Phnom Penh at night to be from a tuk tuk – all the sights and smells are very close and real. We settled down in our room to sleep but once again I had a hard time being tired. I kept thinking about my client Jack back in Florida and decided to check my phone for messages. From three different people I had messages that Jack had died in surgery of a heart attack. What a disturbing night it was from that point on – even though there was nothing I could do. I will miss him so much. But death is not a scary thing for me. I worry more for others who do not have hope as I do, that death is not the end. I know it was not the end for Jack, more a change of venue. On to Monday…

Friday

My room has windows on two walls but in spite of that, no light comes in. The buildings next to our building are only three or four feet away and the small alleyway between them is only wide enough for a (small) person to pass through, and almost no light. There is constant building construction going on all around us and on every street. If a person has enough money, they can get permission to build almost anything they want to build and there is very little code enforcement. There is also very little skilled labor so it is a little scary to think of living in some of the bigger apartment buildings. All this to say that I have no sense of when night is over and it is time to get up.

Our expanded team had prayer together and breakfast before heading out for supplies for the day’s activities. I stayed back in the room to put together our game for the dorm students tonight. They are going to learn some team work skills. They have to study and describe my “creation” to others, who pass it on to others, who finally make the creation again from the description. The team coming closest to the model gets the prize. The Cambodian young people love to do things together and are enthusiastic about games. They are such fun to work with and watch.

The shopping was also done for the medical outreach which is tomorrow and we sorted and bagged items to give away. We have 130 tickets given out in the neighborhood – these people will be the patients. They each receive a bag with some basic health items, a visit with a medical professional to discuss their problems, have their vital signs recorded and their blood sugar checked and a vision test. We have used prescription eye glasses to give to those who need them. Some medications are given out and some referrals are made to local clinics. Our station will be at the Asia’s Hope compound which is in Prek Eng, a suburb of Phnom Penh.

Later: It was a blessing to be able to spend most of the day inside out of the heat, sorting medicines and resting and talking with other team members. Time kind of slipped past and suddenly we were in danger of being late for the evening meeting of the dorm students. They were already doing worship songs when we arrived and I didn’t have time to set up the games I brought. If there is one thing I have learned about these trips it is the need to be flexible, suddenly. Since the games started right after the songs I was making mental adjustments as we progressed. We took the simplest game first and even that took nearly 15 minutes to explain. Just dividing the crowd of 80 young people into teams was like trying to herd turtles. And forget any rules that might have been part of the game – once they started having fun and being competitive things were wild. The second game was more quiet and contemplative, as they sat in groups trying to copy a creation I had made out of “stuff” we got at the market. Over all, they had a lot of fun and so did I. We finished out the evening with a good message and food. Always food…

It’s Tuesday again.  I’m very glad that I worked on packing the bags I had been given last week.  I looked through all of the contents so I would know what I was carrying, added my own contributions and then stepped on the scale with them.  They all should be just under the 50 lb. limit. Thankfully they were.

I’m glad I got  this done because Saturday night I got a call from my hometown that my dad had died – a heart attack most likely. The rest of the night was spent making travel arrangements, not to Cambodia but to Hayward, Wisconsin.  It’s always a complicated procedure to get ticketed on a reasonable flight, at a reasonable price, at the last minute. Even more of a chore when I’m not thinking clearly.  There was another decision to be made every five minutes and they all seemed hard, even the little inconsequential ones.  I had to persist and get there as quickly as I could.  Around 1 am I finally found a way to get home by the next afternoon.

Travel next week will be on Sunday again – back to Bradenton, hopefully in time to wash clothes, pack again and travel to Jacksonville on Monday, to fly on Tuesday to Atlanta and then on to Cambodia.  I feel well traveled.  Maybe over traveled.  This is not the time for me to write about how I’m feeling here, getting ready for my dad’s memorial service.  I am thankful to be surrounded by friends and family,  by love and support.  I will only say that my dad, Owen Smith, will be missed a lot.  We weren’t really prepared to be without him but in some ways the timing was providential.  God knew.

Love you Dad.  It’s so evident now that the body is only a shell to hold the real person for a limited time.  We are really made and groomed for what lies ahead, after we leave this present reality.